fred :-) is an interactive narrative for smartphones. In this application, the smartphone speaks to the user as if he or she were its "friend", hoping to start a relationship. The experience relies on a smartphone’s many sensors (touchscreen, front-facing camera, microphone, accelerometer, gyroscope…). How can we tell a story based on our gestural interactions with a mobile phone? The user has to perform different gestures: smile, talk, tickle, stroke, pinch, tap, shake, play with the light, the volume … How can the different interactions contribute to the narrative and the building of emotions?

Through a series of interactions, fred :-) enables us to become aware of the constraints and possibilities of our smartphone and makes us reflect on the relationship we have with this device. It is also a digital literacy challenge. fred :-) may "touch" teenagers in particular and make them reflect on the emotional relationship they have with a smartphone, and more broadly on its use.