Artists Statement 

A furniture-device is the device having a furniture appearance and physical input and output functions. The Escaping Chair is a furniture-device capable of having physical and dynamic interaction with a subject to create self-awareness toward the intent of their actions and personification of the furniture-device. The chair interacts with the bystanders by trying to move away from nearby people. By doing this, the device tries to make a person unable to sit on it, stimulating their perception toward their sitting action, while also making the person consider the Chair’s “personality”.

• Hiroo Iwata, Japan, has been conducting research on virtual reality. His research interests include haptic interface, locomotion interface and spatially immersive display. He exhibited his work at the Emerging Technologies venue of the SIGGRAPH every year from 1994 to 2007. He also got honorary mentions at Prix Ars Electronica 96 and 2001. He launched Device Art project in 2004. He has been leading Ph.D. program in Empowerment Informatics at the University of Tsukuba since 2013
• Takeshi Oozu & Aki Yamada, Japan