Feedback 09.06.26
Shape of front legs changed to follow the rest of the chair
Templates for router:
Manufacturing Steps
Next up:
last hardware store visit
Rough cutting in Workshop on friday
Finished shapes and assembly during following week
Anton Haberl
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WANNA ROCK? (working title)
Tutorials 22nd of may 2026
A backwards tilted seating surface supports the pressure of the massage wheels on the users back.
A footrest has been added to give the user the ability to rock through their legs and not just weight shifting their upper body.
The massage wheels distance has been adjusted to fit to the shape of a human back.
The distance in which the massage contraption will be installed will be determined by trial and error after building the chair itself.
Technical views
Wood type is going to be ash wood, since it’s bendible and withstands they various forces beeing applied by rocking. Ash wood is luckily directly available in stock in the universities wood workshop.
Building a narrative
Terms:
- Active interaction
- Consoling touch
- Constant motion
- Energy humans passively apply to their surroundings
- Consumption of human power through usual carework
How could the narrative built around the rocking chair include the positive effects of these ideas to form an innovative, speculative concept?
What kind of symbolism could be used to convey this idea?
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Feedback 24th of April
a rocking massage chair
based on feedback from midterms, a new design for fulfilling the idea of having a chair that includes active interaction, consoling touch & constant motion without the need of constantly pushing a pedal with ones feet.
Simplistic model to visualize mechanical solution
A pulley connected to the rocking chair is powered through the back and forth motion of the chair itself, by a lever fixed to the floor. This pulley powers massage rollers on the back of the chair via a belt.
Timing Belt 
Pulley Pulleys and timing belts exist in variable sizes and can be matched to the required distances of the contraption.
Inside of the pulleys bearings will be installed to connect rods to the corresponding parts such as the massage wheels.
message wheel concept
The message wheels are planned from wood, to have a natural material which is supposed to give a pleasant feeling on touch while being easily shapeable.
Aesthetics
scandinavian rocking chair
Scandinavian Lounge Chairs
Further Steps
- Have a chat with Matthias about car parts
- Figure out the exact placement of the message rollers in relation to the human body
- Meeting with Boris Odehnal (Head of Geometry Institute of Angewandte) for calculation of distances for the contraption
- Design pleasant aesthetics keeping a balance between comfort and technicality of the design
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Tutorials March 20th
Designing a chair asking “Could a chair provide comfort through active interaction?”
The urge of getting a massage without the help of another person
Massage Chair
The interest in building a contraption that’s mechanically powered, with muscle power as a starting point
Fujiiryoki Automatic Massage chair from 1954 Making a chair multi purpose (more than just the support of your body and/or comfort)
Pedaling to improve bloodflow for thrombosis patients
Pedal powered sewing machine
Why this technique instead of classic bycicle pedals?
- Provides easier accessibility than the need of two legs for classic pedals
- Demands rhythm from the user, eventually leading to a “fidgeting” motion maybe improving concentration
- Rhythm makes a certain speed of the massage heads possible and keeps it consecutive
- Fulfills the idea of a rocking-pedal for thrombosis patients
Aesthetics
Rehab Chair by Xinyan Yang & Zhongfeng Zhang, College of Furniture and Art Design, ChinaToo much of a medical device design
Manufactum Massage Roller 
Wood for massage rollers, as a pleasant natural material for contact with the body, and general construction of the chair
Leather as natural, durable material for sitting surface and maybe armrests
Metal for mechanical parts, durable and exact to manufacture
Experience with all of these materials, also help is accessible in the university workshops
Alternative
A chair that uses the own body weight with massage surfaces / hand flatterers etc. to provide additional comfort
Surfaces individually carved from wood
Problem:
Formulate a question regarding the brief – what kind of investigative stance could this chair take?
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Team 1 Feedback 16.01
Set & Costume – building & testing
oplus_34 
oplus_2 
Set impressions
Shooting
Heat camera
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Team 1 Feedback Session 19.12.25
What We Do in the Shadows (2015) – A mockumentary style comedy horror film on vampires Bill Nicols modes of documentary:
Reflective Mode
Questioning the authenticity of documentary in general (fits to the brief: make a “fictional” documentary)
Challenge the form and expectations you have by watching a documentary
Form in this mode: the mockumentary
Depicting an observational/expository documentary but completely fictional.
we will be subjective, getting across an absurd point, poking fun at all the tropes and play with convention
Eg. ‘What We Do in the Shadows’, ‘7 Days in Hell’, ‘Tour de Pharmacy’, ‘the Office’Participatory Mode
‘When the encounter between filmmaker and subject is recorded and the filmmaker actively engages with the situation they are documenting’ (Nicols, 2010)
The filmmakers are as well the subjects of our doc as the sloth they are filming
Eg. Michael Moore, Louis Theroux
This allows for us to get our “subject” viewpoint across – and tell the narrative we want to tellDocumentary form & styles:
- the interview (authenticity & authority) off-camera & formal + informal interview style (sloth tending it’s plants, showing the special toilet procedure)
- ‘voice of god’ narrator style
- B roll (location shots of apartment, sloth going outside, close up of front pack, crew setting up/having discussions) providing visual variety and showing what’s being talked about and give pace to the doc and topics
- scenes (sloth running into friend) making the audience feel like they are there
- archival footage (old pictures of sloths, giving some backstory in introduction (giving historical context of development of community), also to explain certain features of the modified human sloth eg the 4 stomaches)
OUR MOVIE
Interior of the sloth apartment
The Sloth
Black Contact lenses Camera
miniDV Cam for following the sloth around 
Canon 16mm f2.6 lens for capturing the interview Storyboards
Schedule:
Until Jan. 8th: Finish terrariums, finish costume and finalize dialogue
Jan. 8th-11th: Filming
11th-16th: Cutting and post production
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Team 1 – Tutorial 5th of december
Law of Inertia
Starting point after Midterms:
Script Writing exercise:
The Sloth-Movement as a community
In our future a group of people chose to genetically modify themselves to be “sloth-hybrid” humans. These humans have a very slow metabolism, which is supposed to be the solution against climate change and scarcity of recources. Since a “Sloth-Person” only consumes about 130kcal per day their impact on the world to a minimum.
While the mainstream exhilarates with busyness and productivity, still driving humanity towards economical instabilities, societal inequalities and climate catastrophes, the sloth is living in balance and harmony with it’s surroundings. On a diet kept strictly to leaves they grow inside their appartments. the Terraniums they carry around fosters symbiotic life and feeds their plants, this means that they have next to no negative effect on their surroundings.
The sloth lifestyle started as a solution to global problems and crisis. But it started offering more: Unpredicted side effects such as solving things like purposelessness, types of depression and not being able to keep up with an evergrowing capitalistic world.
Ideas for the looks of a sloth person:
Ideas for the terrarium
AI generated ideas:
A sloth persons stomach(s)
Loose idea for what the sloth could sound like:
The sloth is not being portrayed as dumb and slow understanding, but as illuminated and measured. It is not speaking a lot and when it does, it takes it’s time.
The movie
A documentary that showcases the sloths lifestyle and it’s natural habitat. The sloth-person is beeing followed by an interviewer from the mainstream world with a light tone of disapproval. The viewer gets and insight on how the sloth copes with a day in it’s life. Very slowly.
In this “nature” documentary, David Attenborough meets “docuganda” – putting the sloth lifestyle in a bright light – while having a behind the scenes angle that shows the disgust of the still productive people.
What do we want to show the watcher?
The flaws of both worlds: total relaxation and pointless productivity. We highlight the loss of identity/humanity vs “over” individualism, and the idea that we can only come closer to nature/solve climate change by “engineering ourselves in a very unnatural way” — the absurdity of the solution. The film acts as a mirror of their own feelings towards these worlds.
What does one gain by becoming a sloth?
- Contribution to climate with reducing my CO2 footprint and contributing to ecosystem — without any effort.
- Being productive, going with the flow — without effort.
- No more struggles of human brain = just be happy (no mental illnesses, no more comparison, etc.).
- Self-sufficient (no more work/guilt/looking for meaning).
What does one lose by becoming a sloth?
- Self-identity.
- Community.
- Humanity.
- Control/power.
- Potential future.
- Drive.
Road till Design Freeze
- Decide final looks of sloth
- Complete the storyline and scenes
- Finish scripts
- Find a place to shoot
- Find an actor for the main protagonist