Channel 2.5 is a self initated series of working sketches which explore the concepts around interactive TV and its integration with more traditional broadcast.

 
 
 

I felt that interactive TV was a strange entity. The word interactive seems incongrous with the passive nature of television consumption. Presently, much of the iTV available seems to be concerned with the proliferation of choice rather than any real interaction.

Perhaps the reason that interactive applications do not feel as engaging as regular content is that they simply can't compete with the fast paced nature of TV. It seemd to me that if I was to think about successful TV interactivity, I would need to look at some fundamentals and try to integrate any interventions within these.

  
 

In the land of interactive TV, the remote control is king.

I wanted to try and build some interactive interventions which employed only the regular paradigms of TV use – watching and clicking. In this way I could "insert" a new functionality into TV without having to compete with the content.

During these sketches, I became very interested with the idea of mini applications almost as content in their own right.

  
 

My first two iterations were concerned with the phenomenon of "channel surfing." The intention being that by intervening in the process, viewers might question the way they interacted with the TV.

Version 1 forces you to constantly change channels in order to view content. Every two seconds, the screen begins to fill up with blue squares until it becomes completely obscured. The only way to get a normal picture is to change channel, whereby the process begins again.

  
  Version 2 does exactly the opposite. A counter gradually builds up at the bottom of the screen. The changing of channels is disabled until the counter fills the width of the screen. If you try to change before this, the counter resets and you have to wait even longer.  
 

The final version seeks to create a new functionality. A 3D map builds up which responds to the users channel flicking. Each channel has a coloured block to represent it. Whilst you are watching a channel, that block is "active." As you change channel, so the active component changes. The channel up and down buttons rotate the map and the volume buttons allow you to zoom in and out. The idea of this intervention was that it would draw attention away from content and allow you to doodle using TV channels as a tool.

Are you manipulating the map or watching the content that it describes?