The MA Interaction Design Communication course delves into expanded and experimental design practices, exploring the intersection of physical and digital domains of design, through research, prototyping and provocation.
From the critical and speculative, to human-centred approaches to the internet of things, this year’s show, part of LCC Postgraduate Shows 2017: Show 2, features student initiated projects on digital materiality and memory, space travel, future foods and magical interactions.
We highlight some of the projects on show…
Betty Zhang
The Extimacy Dress
The Extimacy Dress by Betty Zhang
Tingles down your spine, heart pounding, hands fidgeting, your breathing gets faster, as you walk closer and brush by. They respond on the same nervous rhythm and you both surmount a mutual barrier.
The Extimacy Dress senses the wearer’s level of arousal through micro-gestures and affective states. Comprised of 2 parts, a live performance where the dress inhabits the dancer while the dancer responds in a gestural dialogue and a video installation capturing flirtation in its non-verbal, intensional traces based on externalized intimate emotions. This project was made in collaboration with costume designer, Hana Zeqa and performer Amy Cartwright.
Maureen O Eibeler
But what is a kitchen anyway?
But what is a kitchen anyway? encourages people to contemplate the effects our decisions now will have on our futures—how we can shape these futures with different solutions. Our future food lies in a unique intersection of biology, technology and culture. We have an opportunity to develop not only sustainable ways to expand our food sources, but also our communal interactions with each other and these systems.
My installation is a projection of how trends in urbanisation and meat consumption will effect how we live, cook and eat years down the road. My material of design is not necessarily the objects I am creating, but the behaviours I am observing themselves. Using cultured meat as the catalyst and kitchen appliance prototypes to create this speculative future, I will focus on the interactions people have with these prototypes. Thus establishing, But what is a kitchen anyway?
Tapanon (Pipe) Amatayakul
A Pile of Talks / Sand Messenger
Tapanon (Pipe) Amatayakul, A Pile of Talks
A series of critical projects under the concept of ‘Absence’ is the essential part of our communication. Sand Messenger : This project is a voice recorder tool that encourages the user to appreciate the quality of time and have thoughts about having more meaningful conversations. The sand represents the limited time to record your voice. Make every bit of sand count. A pile of talk : The conversation collector records the quality of your voice recordings by turning contexts into different colors of sand. This project challenges the user to reflect on the absent moments within their conversations.
Lin Dong
Plants Talk
Lin Dong, Plants Talk
“Plants have feelings, organs and psychic abilities much more advanced than ours.” – The Secret Life of Plants by Peter Tompkins.
The starting point of ‘Plants Talk’ is a re-examination of anthropocentrism. Under the global context of climate change, the project explores the possibilities of communication with nature. If design can bring a new way of life, human beings can participate in plants’ communication.
Through communicating with plants we can find a way to be more aware of how human activities threaten biodiversity and lead to climate change through feedback from plants.
Through this project, I want to encourage people to be more positive about the future of the relationship between humans and technology as an interface to the natural world.
Huankai Chen
Autonomy Reminder
Huankai Chen, Autonomy Reminder
“Addictive tech is part of the mainstream in a way that addictive substances never will be.” — Adam Alter
Autonomy Reminder provides you only 100000 clicks and 100000 cm to use your mouse and keyboard everyday. The project invited you to question your body as a tool of immersion and addiction to the flow of digital information. By fore-fronting the physical interactions you have with a computer, it invites you to consider the role of the body and human energy in the flow of information provided on the screen and to have a sublime interaction with digital technology.