PERMANENT ADDRESS, Kiana Bahramian
Permanent Address is part of several works developed from digital-memoirs series.
2018
HOUSE-WI-FI-ZATION, Stephanie Cedeño
House-Wi-Fi-zation is a semiotic and speculative process that explores, gender, labor and the smart home
AUGMENTED BIOSPHERE, Gordon (Seung Il) Choi
Augmented Biosphere speculates a data biosphere publicly and visually revealing data collection.
EXPOSED BEAUTY, Elena Cullen
Exposed Beauty reorients wearable technology by deconstructing the methods beauty products have been conventionally used to either accentuate or conceal.
ENSOMA, Justine Esquivel-Petrov
Ensoma exists between the home and care clinics to support survivors of sexual violence prior to and throughout their gynecological exams.
HELLO, NEIGHBOR!, Tiffany Henschel
At a time when more apps exist to meet strangers than those living next door, “Hello, Neighbor!” focuses on the often overlooked ephemeral moments of exchange among residents in urban Los Angeles neighborhoods.
UNRESOLVED IRONIES, Yeawon Kim
Unresolved Ironies questions what are possible physical structures that “listen” to one’s emotional distress t
F.O.M.O. INTERNET OF TH!NGS, Claire Le Nobel
F.O.M.O. Internet of Th!ngs: Acoustic Connectivity in a Synthetic Ecology is an evolving sound environment.
TRAINING THROUGH TENDING, Xiaoxuan Liu
Training Through Tending is a design research that explores the process in which AI systems learn human bias through tending plants over time.
SIMPLY SATISFACTION, Michael Milano
Simply Satisfaction: Cobots do everything (but what you want to do) explores a spectrum of satisfaction created by utilizing collaborative automation while giving the user the ability to step in and out of any part of the task.
JUST&, Bianca Nozaki-Nasser
Just& is a physical/digital toolkit that gives multiracial identifying individuals ways to navigate their externally perceived racial identity within America’s monoracial systems.
THE BLUE DOT: A USER’S GUIDE, Godiva Veliganilao Reisenbichler
The Blue Dot: A User’s Guide intervenes at the seams of what appears to be a seamless user interaction.
ALONE, TOGETHER, Nan H. Tsai
Alone, Together is a study of interaction that challenges the current model of loneliness and self-centric approach in the design for immersive technology.
DRIVERLESS GOVERNMENT, Jason Shun Wong
Driverless Government challenges the current bureaucratic system by imagining representation in new forms.
SURFACE TENSION, Nicci Yin
Surface Tension is a series of proposed scenarios and materials for a gooier take on immersion.
SWAG SAUCE, Hao Zhang
Swag Sauce is a collection of confident swag looks for the young underdog to compete against who would be perceived as elite peers in local areas and online spaces.
2017
RETEMPERING KNOWLEDGE, Joshua Bookman
Retempering Knowledge embraces the experience and knowledge of everyday things (cooking, ice cream, language) in a post-internet culture.
AN ALGORITHM FOR LIVING IN, Lee Cody
An Algorithm For Living In is a suite of unique interfaces for negotiating our relationships with platforms and algorithms.
(N)-BODY, Shiveesh Fotedar
If a user is mapped onto a Mars Rover, what kind of interactions would the user develop if his body is constrained to that of a non-human form (Rover)? Does the user identify itself as a human or rover or both?
OLFACTORY GRAMMAR, Qiao Y. Huang
Olfactory Grammar reinterprets user interactions based on scent, by considering smell as a powerful pathway and new interface for communication.
BAR OF THE RESISTANCE, Amanda Jensen
Bar of the Resistance is a cultural critique that brings to light what the U.S. corporate beer industry has intentionally obfuscated.
STICK +, Hui Li
This thesis proposes a form of hybrid object that embodies specific types of functionality to address people aging-in-place and in assisted-living environments.
EXPLORING DIFFERENT LAYERS AND NOTIONS OF MIXED REALITY, Xing Lu
My thesis emphasizes thinking about design questions in the context of using the mixture of the emerging alternative reality technology.
DATA FARMING HOTEL, Momo Mao
Data Farming Hotel provides a space for institutions to harvest farm visitor’s data with selective op-in permission.
FEMINIST AI PROJECTS REVISITED, Christine Meinders
Feminist AI Projects Revisited responds to early explorations of symbolic Artificial Intelligence and the creation of the disembodied mind.
LOSSLESS ENCOUNTERS, Jade Milan
Lossless Encounters offers the viewer a glimpse into the gap between perfect “digital lucidity” and the mind’s altering of reality through natural decay.
URBAN POWER PLAYS, R.J. Sakai
Urban Power Plays centers around workshops where civil servants physically model the governmental system which determines how they work.
AWARENESS APPAREL, Anjuli Sethi
Awareness Apparel uses Ahiṃsā, the Jain knowledge system of nonviolence, as a framework for design, encouraging people to question the impact of their actions on the environment.
INTERSENSING: INTERFACE OR SENSE, Sche-I Wang
Intersensing: Interface or Sense is a context-based gestural language that constitutes a learning system between human and machine to support user intention and also question the boundary between interfaces and human senses.
2016
POLICING BODIES, Erika Katrina Barbosa
Policing Bodies interrogates the role of design in everyday choreographies of power and oppression.
THE INTERNET OF CONSCIOUSNESS, Elaine Cheung
The Internet of Consciousness explores the changing design landscape around altered consciousness and imagines a suite of products that cater to a user’s journey into the self.
SELF, CONSCIOUS, SYSTEMS, Margo Dunlap
Self, Conscious, Systems synthesizes critical theory on social change, contemporary discourses on social justice, and graphic symbolism to propose a cognitive-behavioral practice for political consciousness.
THE TASTING MENU, Xin Guo
The Tasting Menu is a first-person video that speculates on how 3D printing, automation, and mechanization will impact the fine dining experience.
ANTON IN WONDERLAND, Jay Hong
Anton in Wonderland takes place in a parallel world where people live happily.
MAKE UP CIRCUITS, QingYi Li
Make Up Circuits is a systematic form of communication that starts from the skin.
I’M FEELING…, Nick Meehan
I’m Feeling… is a set of projects that give users greater agency over the curatorial algorithms that define their knowledge output.
BORED IN SPACE: RITUALS IN CLOSED LOOP ENVIRONMENTS, Faith Oftadeh
Bored in Space: Rituals in Closed Loop Environments explores the design of varied experiences and new ritual practices in the context of Mars colonization.
STORAGE PROXIES AND OBJECT SPIRITS: MANAGING OUR STUFF IN THE POST-OWNERSHIP ERA, Shan Shen
Storage Proxies and Object Spirits: Managing Our Stuff in the Post-Ownership Era uses speculative narratives, scenarios, prototypes, and diagrams to illustrate a proposed leasing and renting economy.
QUANTUM WANDERING SEARCH, Selwa Sweidan
In Quantum Wandering Search, uncertainty is used as a basis for the design of search and machine learning systems.
THE LEAGUE OF RESEARCH, Shixie Shi Trofimov
The League of Research is a gamified collaborative writing platform for generating scientific research papers.
QUANTIFIED SELF 2.0: DATA FABRICATION LAB, Nan Wang
Quantified Self 2.0: Data Fabrication Lab imagines objects that fabricate themselves by doing experiments with human data.
NOT THERE, BE HERE, Esther Yi
Not There, Be Here uses design to challenge interpersonal interactions that are mediated by electronic devices, screens, and social media.
LANDSCAPED VISION: AUGMENTED REALITY AND THE CHINESE GARDEN, Zhihan Ying
Landscaped Vision: Augmented Reality and the Chinese Garden examines the potential of augmented reality (AR) as a tool for re-ordering real-time spatial experience.
2015
K_XYZ: THE FIRST HUMAN BORN IN SPACE, Jasmin Blasco
By flipping the pioneering narrative on its head, K_XYZ tells the story of the space native through a series of fictional journal entries authored by a theoretical entity: The First Human Born In Space.
POINT OF INTEREST, Gerardo Guerrero
Point of Interest examines the conflicts and new narratives that arise from these emergent depictions of place.
WIFI_cLAN, Marcus Guttenplan
By making information dimensional, WiFi_cLAN serves as an alternate cartography for navigating the borderlands between physical and digital space.
PLANT-LIKE ROBOT, Ji Won Jun
Plant-like Robot explores an alternative way to design and use robots through the combination of plant characteristics and robotic sensor interaction.
PLAYING HOUSE, Tim Kim
Playing House blurs the distinction between representation and reality by revealing the staging of the everyday and imagining new behaviors.
DYNAMISM OF NON-PSYCHOLOGICAL SOCIALITY, Mengxiao Li
Learning from our conventional human-social experiences, Dynamism of Non-Psychological Sociality examines how technological innovations in ubiquitous computing adapt various social manners and how this co-existence can alter our life patterns.
THE STAGE OF EVERYTHING, Sangli Li
The Stage of Everything explores the relationship between audience behaviors and stage settings.
HUMANS IN SPACE, QiYuan Li
Humans in Space looks at space exploration where human is situated at the center.
AND CONTAGIOUS: STANDARD CHEERS FOR PUNTA WAY! MPK! Kristina L. Ortega
and contagious: Standard Cheers for Punta Way! MPK! explores how participatory methods applied to critical and speculative design expand conversations around designed alternatives.
UNPERCEPTIVE INTERACTIONS, Maria Pagan
Through speculative design, Unperceptive Interactions explores the intersection between transgenic plants and mechanical systems in living spaces, from the urban to the planetary scale.
MEANING LESS AND PLANTING HEDGES, Zoe Padgett
Meaning Less examines what role secondary forms of language can play in computing, and how they may operate as new modes of digital expression.
WELCOME TO TEST PARK, Jenny Rodenhouse
Welcome to Test Park examines test sites as places that prototype alternate realities not yet accessible or desirable to the public.
UNFORGETFUL INTERFACES, Xiaochen Yang
Unforgetful Interfaces looks at the new social and interpersonal behaviors that emerged in such hyper-remembrance environment.
2014
LOST BETWEEN SWIPES, Greg Ahn
Lost Between Swipes is a set of tools that allow users to adjust the facts that define their social media selves by manipulating the data of their geolocation.
GENERATION TODAY, HyunJu Chappell
Generation Today is a collaboration with Ugandan youth to examine youth political agency in Uganda.
THE 12TH MAN: NEW NARRATIVES OF ATHLETIC ENHANCEMENT, Eric J. Battin
The 12th Man: New Narratives of Athletic Enhancement explores the social response to disruptive technologies for augmenting professional athletes.
MY OWN PRIVATE GOOGLE EARTH, Ian Besler
My Own Private Google Earth showcases a collection of models, videos, and digital artifacts that examine the role of the hobbyist modeler and the culture of Google Earth.
ESTIMATED TIME OF ARRIVAL, Walton Chiu
Estimated Time of Arrival is a short film that examines the human desire to be located within the social matrix in an age of ubiquitous sensing and the routine exchange of masses of information.
NOTHING HIDES, Aaron Fooshee
Nothing Hides creates an exhibit of the spoils of a hunt: amalgams of technology and the mapped bodies of compromised avatars that show the subjugation of form by the painterly, hackerly, photographer-artist-hunter.
ARE YOU STILL THERE? Divya Gaitonde
Are You Still There? is a speculative digital service that allows all or part of an individual to attend social events—through a combination of in-person and remote participation with friends and loved ones.
RECODER, Sangwoo Han
REcoder is a speech-modification device that uses algorithmic filters that allow users to avoid detection depending on who the listener is—a human or a machine.
DATA AGENTS, Shawn Jackson
Data Agents is a speculative system in which autonomous agents optimize human lives, forcing us to ask: with sentient data, who is in control?
WHY ARE YOU HERE? Jonathan Jue
Why Are You Here? explores the use of conversation prompts for children with disabilities in Kampala to initiate a more equitable dialog with their international visitors.
SPACE vs. LAND, Matt Kizu
Space vs. Land is a satirical critique of Monsanto’s ability to redefine agricultural property through the use of genetically modified seeds and legal and economic forces.
NEW FEELINGS, Nancy Kwon
New Feelings is a collection and study of the emotions that come from strange new social interactions unique to life on the Internet.
THE IMAGINARIUM OF COMMUNAL THETA WAVES, Gene Lee
The Imaginarium of Communal Theta Waves is a system that collects high beta waves from a group of users to create a collective mental-spatial experience.
MOBILE KAMPFIRE, Jessica Lee
Kampala’s taxi parks—marked with urban development tensions—are the contexts of Mobile Kampfire, a set of public platforms designed to initiate spontaneous, personal conversations with its facilitator.
TRICKLE-DOWN EMPOWERMENT, Cayla McCrae
Trickle-down Empowerment is examination of ethical consumerism and charitable giving between the Global North and Global South.
HACKING THE SECOND SKIN, Barb Natali
Hacking the Second Skin utilizes clothing in an exploration of the power struggle between individuals, their bodies, and a patriarchal society.
TEENAGE AMPLI’TUDE, Tina Zeng
Teenage Ampli’tude explores a platform that supports youths in making their own technology in a slum area of Kampala.
2013
REIMAGING THE ORDINARY, Jacob Brancasi
Reimaging the Ordinary engages communities in the collaborative creation of their own “stock” photo images.
IDIOSYNCRATIC AMBIANCE, Jisu Choi
Idiosyncratic Ambiance is a set of tools designed for today’s urban nomad to identify and replicate the experiential qualities of their favorite living space.
THE CHARAKTORS PROJECT, Jojo Chongjaroenjai
The CHARAKTORS Project is a modular system that allows for playful characterization of mobile devices through malleable materials.
A SERIES OF CAMERA DIALOGUES, Sang In Chung
A Series of Camera Dialogues uses the “poetic interpretations” of people in geographical environments taken by interactive cameras, allowing us to see cities defined by human behavior instead of by buildings and streets.
HELLO PROMPTERS, Jeremy Eichenbaum
Hello Prompters is a playful investigation into scripted communication and mediated interaction that reconfigures the relationships among subject, author, and audience.
ANECDOTAL EVIDENCE: ENCOUNTERS WITH THE NEW OTHER, William Frohn
Anecdotal Evidence: Encounters with the New Other is a series of filmic vignettes about the emerging behaviors, interactions, and situations in a world of commonplace autonomous machines.
ICT4[n], Elizabeth Monachello Gin
ICT4[n] is a Market Mailing List whose design stems from the ambitions, priorities, and daily context of women in Bugolobi Market, Kampala.
LIMINAL POWER, Jeffrey K. Hall
Liminal Power works to preserve and develop the informal approaches to resource access that are utilized by communities to negotiate conditions beyond their control.
SECOND NATURE, Geoffery Ka’alani
Second Nature shows a future in which everything, from clothing to bunk beds, is a farm, and everyone, including children, are farmers.
STREET CORNER ECOLOGY, Betsy Kalven
Street Corner Ecology looks at how space and social interaction can be used to counteract the negative effects of food deserts.
CHANGE FOR SOCIAL DESIGN, Maria del Carmen Lamadrid Zamora
Change for Social Design is a set of platforms that aim to provoke critical discourse around social design practice, methods, and methodologies by addressing the unequal power dynamics in traditional social design.
OBJECTIVE DEVICES, Jessica Lee
Objective Devices combine physics, chance, and superstition. The interactive devices include Quantum Trader whose geiger counter detects radioactive signals that determine trades on the open stock market. It’s currently up thirty points.
YOUTH CENTER MOBILE, An Mina
Youth Center Mobile re-envisions the current model for technology implementation in youth centers in northern Uganda.
MODERN SHAPESHIFTING, Katherine Miyake
In Modern Shapeshifting, sensors and receivers allow one to experience the world through bodily sensations that are otherwise impossible due to distance or scale, from traffic that encircles your torso to trade winds that blow down your back.
VISCERALITIES, Andrew Nagata
Visceralities is a set of hybrid devices whose gleaming machines and organ-like interfaces engage the user in interactions that delight and disgust in equal measure.
PRAIRIE HUM, Sarah Needham
Prairie Hum, based on the latest advances in microrobotics and biological ecosystems, envisions a family farm that includes a hive of robotic bees whose lifecycle—from launch to mechanical fatigue—is built upon sustainable practices that lead to new architectures and landforms.
DECLARATIONS OF INTERDEPENDENCE, John Ryan
Declarations of Interdependence provides alternative models of interaction that are group-centered rather than user-centered. The project critiques the centrality of the individual in Western society and looks at how social media and human-computer interfaces reinforce this worldview.
PLAYING OUTSIDE: AN ALGORITHM RECITAL, Tanner Teale
Playing Outside: An Algorithm Recital is a series of projects that play with the performance of algorithms in our daily lives. The work attempts to expose these immaterial structures by perverting their intended purpose and revealing the fragility of ubiquitous systems.
ENGAGING THE UNSPOKEN: WOMEN IN THE WORKPLACE, Judy Toretti
Engaging the Unspoken is a suite of conversation objects that unlocks and explores the implicit cultural knowledge of women in the workplace while also interrogating tactical modes of women’s advancement in a predominantly male-centered system.
2012
BE MY SATELLITE, Bora Shin
In the eye of the satellite, you are not even a pixel. Be My Satellite allows us to experience the invisible phenomenon of satellite photography through open-source satellite tracking data, a low-tech balloon camera, and collaborative satellite image-hacking. The project brings design and science together to build awareness of the presence, effects, and possibilities of ubiquitous geospatial imaging in our daily lives.
FEEDBACK OCCURRENCES, Ricardo Bojorquez
Feedback Occurrences uses standard materials, common techniques and everyday electronics to create an inventory of interactions. These staged events are empirical meditations, both poetic and material.
SOFT PUBLICS, Michael Manalo
Soft Publics is a mobile partition system designed for the “political space” of the Los Angeles streetscape: parking stalls, the right of way and setbacks of buildings (as defined by the municipal code). The modular system ‘screens’ and ‘whites out’ buildings, signage and other aspects of a site to provoke new uses for these spaces, including exercises of speech and demonstrating through occupying.
THE EMPEROR’S NEW POST-ITS™, Matthew Manos
The Emperor’s New Post-Its™ is a collection of business-design methodologies that use hyperbole to provoke critical discourse around the notion of “design thinking.” The project is meant to be a catalyst for the development of new approaches to the entrepreneurial endeavor.
THIS, THAT, AND THE OTHERS, Aurelia Friedland
We live in a world of if/then’s, from our engineered landscapes, networks, and systems to the tools with which we design them. This, That, and the Othersuses narrative simulations, built in Google SketchUp, to imagine techno-urban landscapes that look beyond the if/thens to the how so’s.
TEMPLE OF SELF, Aarti Vashisht
Temple of Self brings together the biological self and the artificial self by probing a future where self sensing and tracking become an obsessive norm. The project, a set of stories about devices worn by participants for weeks on end, forces us to confront what happens when the body itself becomes the conduit for information.
PROJECT GOODCRY, Dee Kim
Project Goodcry explores the act of crying and its relationship to media in digital space, domestic space and public space. A series of prototypes for social media, interactive television, and a public booth, question the need for stimulation, communication and expression in a mediated social environment.
THE AFFECTION STATIONS, Salvador Orara
Affection Stations detect the internal mysteries of our electronic devices. A collection of interactive experiences allow people to interpret, listen, and transcode their own device’s unique incidental sound, revealing it to be more than a tool, toy, or gizmo but a source of greater meaning.
AISTHETIKA, Adam Fischbach
What if an object, like a doorknob, could tell us about another person’s state of mind? Through a network of texture- and pattern-based interfaces in a home, Aisthetika explores how haptic feedback of biophysical and environmental data augments how we perceive our interactions with objects and each other.
KINETIC CUISINE, Rubina Ramchandani
Kinetic Cuisine is a gestural interface for cooking that amplifies the memories and sensuality that make cooking one of our most intimate and deeply cultural experiences. The project envisions a system that learns and responds to the user’s body while preparing food in the kitchen.
I.N.T.E.R.V.A.L.S, Chiao Ho
Together, Slow Letter, Dandelion, and White Lies create a communication system whose distortions challenge the instantaneity of digital communication. By exchanging convenience and practicality for hidden subjective and emotional values, the applications expose a need for complex human expression that could never be satisfied by a single “SEND” button.
DASH GARDEN, Link Huang
Situated in a near-future autonomous automobile, Dash Garden is a system of interactive objects that are physically responsive to both the user and the environment. At the point where active information display and active user input meet, the system transforms raw data into a personal ecology of shape-shifting devices.
POPULIST GET A JOB , Dustin York
Populists Get a Job investigates the idea that democratic protests against the existing economic or political reality can evolve into factions of locally-run communal business enterprises. This project is a critical provocation that asks how the ideals of democracy and the laws of economic markets can merge together for the disenfranchised, so that they may innovate and earn for themselves the future they deserve.
PORTALS (AND FRIENDS) , Jayne Vidheecharoen
Portals (and friends) introduces a way to play together that is unique to today’s network culture. A collage of portals, poppets, emoties, and grabatars are deployed in Google Street View while rovosand peeps play in a corresponding physical location. The result is a real-time hybrid experience unfazed by notions of space, time, and authorship.
A MACHINE FRAME OF MIND, Brooklyn Brown
A Machine Frame of Mind invites speculation about the wonderfully strange role of artificial intelligence in our lives. Using computer vision as design material, the project presents the machine’s perspective as a source of pleasure, the result of radically different analytical capabilities, the increasing ambiguity of human identity, and the creation of the abstract, computerized self.
2011
ORDINARY EPISTEMES, Sue Yang
Ordinary Epistemes mines the tension between objective knowledge and subjective perception by contextualizing abstract phenomena we experience ordinarily. The project defines our epistemic challenges to ‘know’ as the process of creating engaging media, the ‘thought instruments.’
STRANGE COMPANIONS, Jiha Hwang
Strange Companions asks us to experience a new type of robotic companion with unexpected and idiosyncratic behaviors. Through a series of visual studies the audience can imagine how such creatures might behave in their living spaces.
MYRIAD ACCOUNTS, Julianne Weiss
Written and performed live, Myriad Accounts positions multiple writers beside one another as they record their surroundings textually in real time. This arrangement and its dynamic publishing mechanism allow readers to experience multifarious linguistic and personal reactions to the real.
HIJACKERS, Yuin Chien
Hijackers is a radical response to patterns of interface design that predict user behavior. These mash-ups of hacked web technology and quirky human expressions illuminate our complicity in the digital status quo.
IN ABSTENSIA, Sara Moore
In absentia explores how emergent technologies can assist in the processes of personal grieving. Through scientifically- and technologically-informed design, this speculative project creates new rituals and artifacts to help us remember our deceased and deal with death.
AUGMENTABLE, BELIEVABLE, IMPROVABLE AND INVISIBLE, Ina Xi
Augmentable, Believable, Improvable and Invisible investigates how social media users craft virtual identities, manage reputations and augment real-world relationships by sharing misleading personal information. The project envisions services that incorporate deception as a fundamental affordance of the social networking experience.
COLLABORATIVE PERCEPTION, Scott Liao
Collaborative Perception researches the affordances of low-cost technologies as tools for participatory storytelling, reconsidering the use of two-dimensional media content. The approach creates a multi-layered authoring space that can be explored with the audience’s imagination and curiosity.
MINDING THE GAP, Hye Mi Kim
Minding the Gap is an investigation into the ambiguity of data sets, reexamining scientific and technological data. Through exposure, study, and the illustration of gaps, data is transformed from a barometer of reality into a space filled with subjective and imaginative interpretation.
BODY 2.0, Daniel Lara
Body 2.0 embraces the day-to-day complexities that are a byproduct of “Ubiquitous Body Computing” and a fully networked world. The project focuses on the unique features, uncommon banalities and possible absurdities of our near future.
A SCREEN IS A STAGE IS A SET IS A STORY, Manny Darden
A Screen is a Stage is a Set is a Story explores the creation of immersive narratives, distributing a single story across multiple viewing spaces. Drawing on the principles of scenography, this project addresses both physical and digital design in its engagement with the audience.
OBJECT COMPRESSION, Ana Ramos
We define ourselves through the objects we own. Using fire as a catalyst, Object Compression (OBCO) is a service that synthesizes the most valuable aspects of one’s objects, compressing them into a single essential item. The project challenges consumer culture, planned obsolescence and what is worth inheriting.
LISTENING INSTRUMENTS, Alex Braidwood
Listening Instruments is a set of inventions that transform the relationship between people and the noise in their environment. The functional prototypes on display are simultaneously devices that respond to their surroundings and tools for manipulating how a user listens.
THE STORY GETS BETTER, Hoon Oh
The Story Gets Better: Precipitated Experience uses the context of sports to investigate the effects of emerging technologies on relationships among people and spaces. This media-based study inspires speculation about augmented reality, media coverage, and computational environments. Old distinctions begin to collapse.
HAPPINESS INITIATIVE, Hae Jin Lee
In a society obsessed with happiness, what kind of genetic, neural, pharmacological and computer technologies may arise to meet people’s increasing desire for happiness? The Happiness Initiative invites people to imagine what it will be like when those technologies enter our daily lives. Will we become happier? What is happiness, after all?
2010
RESTLESS FREETIME, Haemi Yoon
Restless Freetime considers the downtime of electronic objects as an area of investigation for Interaction Design. The project seeks to expose, exaggerate, and shift the master-servant relationship we have with our appliances and household objects.
PARTICIPATORY UNIVERSE, Hyun Ju Yang
Participatory Universe is a visual exploration of ideas from the theory of quantum physics and cosmology that examines how the micro reflects the macro in both process and form. Through in-depth visual analysis, the project reveals how human interactions reflect the immense system of the universe.
TEXTURE, TOUCH, AND MEANING, Hunter Sebresos
Through a series of studies and prototypes, Texture, Touch, and Meaning looks at alternatives to a screen-saturated future by proposing the ways in which texture, dynamic materials, and the sense of touch could be used in new forms of communication.
OBJECT 2.0, Yoo Kyoung Noh
Object 2.0 happens in the near future when the Internet is integrated into everyday objects and spaces. A series of scenarios and physical prototypes suggests new interfaces and demonstrates the world that results: object-generated content, object-oriented social networks, and a coincident ad-hoc network.
THE AUTONOMY OF ORDER, Haelim Paek
Anatomy of Order takes a curatorial approach to conversations, Google searches, newspapers, and common objects. By systematically collecting, re-collecting, ordering, and re-ordering, the project explores the gap between perception and truth in the everyday.
RESPONSIVE CAUSALITY, Austin Lee
Responsive Causality is an installation of physical objects and digital simulations in which a chain of events moves across these two domains. The project explores how our understanding of movement in architectural space may be reconfigured in a future of digitally-enabled environments.
WEB TIME, Chris Lauritzen
Web Time approaches the internet as a time-based media performance, provoking us to consider how we locate, capture and consume our experience of the web. The project offers a cosmological understanding of the web in which Tim Berners-Lee plays God and all time is marked from the moment of the web’s inception.
MEDIA FOR ADVOCACY, Nicole Chan
Media For Advocacy asks what does design research have to offer a grassroots non-profit organization? Working with a local dog rescue group, Chan used multiple media that allowed volunteers to see the organization as a whole and to cultivate creative solutions to the issues that were revealed.
MARGINALIA, Chris Becker
Marginalia: The Hybrid Textbook connects tangible print media to a digital counterpart. Becker’s hybrid physical + digital prototype exploits the potential of the margin as a communication platform that connects readers in real-time and across history.