Textmos is a concept design for an interactive installation which focuses on creating a social interface.

As human beings, we engage in social relationships through everyday conversations. As a form of interactive and spontaneous communication, conversation allows us to transfer information, ideas and emotions and helps us to establish and maintain social ties with each other. With the recent rapid development of information technology and raising popularisation of mobile devices, more and more conversations are conducted through the internet, with a tap on the fingertips. As an obvious advantage, instant message apps and SMS create opportunities for people to have conversations over distances in the form of instant messages. But perhaps a subtle effect of this technology is that the whole conversation is automatically documented. For people with close relationships, such record means more than a message log, but shared memories and emotions, which could be cherished and recollected. Sometimes reviewing message log feel just like going through a photo album. But with cellphones, this often has to be done by tediously and endlessly scrolling down on the touch screen.

Textmos is a social interface experiment to provide a new interface for this intimate experience. Once stepped into the room, the participants are asked to connected to the local wireless network, which prompt for uploading the message history between the participants. Four projectors are used to project the message log onto the four walls in a random manner. Kinect sensors are installed to monitor the location of the participants, so that when they walk towards a specific area in the room, the messages on the wall in that direction is automatically zoomed in with more detail. Based on keyword search, Textmos will find other connected conversations and link them together in the projection. Therefore the participants can re-live the shared feelings and re-discover their shared memories.