A Tangible Art Learning Tool with a Behavioral Metaphor

The use of metaphors is an important approach in interactive design. A metaphor uses a vehicle to carry a similar concept from another commonly unrelated topic to facilitate understanding. A behavioral metaphor is a kind of metaphor combining referred objects and related action. For teaching and learning in an art course, two famous paintings were converted into two three-dimensional settings. Each setting represents a state of human consciousness or unconsciousness. The changes in position and rotation of objects in the settings may represent a story or mind state. To apply the concept of behavioral metaphor, an interactive tool with a tangible user interface was designed with wood-framed boxes, tangible objects, and interactive media software/hardware consisting of magnetic sensors, a microcontroller, and a tablet display.