Hertzian Tales explores the role electronic products might play in the
aesthetic inhabitation of a rapidly dematerialising, ubiquitous and
intelligent environment.
1. Faraday Chair: As electronic products escape their cases and leak into the space surrounding them, it might become necessary for people to seek shelter in specially constructed non-radio spaces or negative radios. To shield our homes would be a luxury only the rich could afford. The Faraday Chair provides shelter from electromagnetic fields invading our homes. It is a utilitarian shelter of minimum dimensions and comfort, it might even be a retreat, a new place to dream, away from the constant bombardment of telecomunication and electronic radiation.
2. The Pillow is an abstract radio for encouraging an awareness of the local electroclimate, a bit like weather equipment. It responds to changes in the local radio frequency environment within a range of 200 m, picking up mobile phones, pagers, walkie-talkies and even baby monitoring devices. It questions notions of privacy -- although the person listening to conversations is a social invader, the radiation from the phone call is invading their home and body.
3. Tuneable Cities explores new experiences of overlapping electromagnetic and urban environments. This proposal uses the car as an interface to explore interactions with existing and new systems. The most effective design intervention here is not at the level of the object, but its function. And it is through the medium of electronic products that new urban experiences are provided.
We programmed a radio scanner with some frequencies for baby intercoms and illegal bugging devices and drove around London mapping what we found. We produced maps to suggest these radio spaces were environments not just energy fields, something you can enter and occupy. On some streets in the suburbs, almost half the houses transmitted domestic soundscapes leaked through wireless babycoms.
Usually the car cuts us off from the environment, here it is intended to emphasise our connection. The car radio could reveal existing zones created by babycoms and illegal bugs, or it could connect to new specially designed radio spaces created by radio birds for instance.
4. The Thief of Affections is an exploration of design genres. If mainstream design is Hollywood, then this project is film noir. By renting it, you borrow a perspective on everyday life and try it out for size. You enter a narrative as a protagonist; you may not like it, but like a film or a story, this is part of the experience.
It's a sort of walkman for an otaku -- an alienated person in search of electronic affection. The thief?s object of their desire is the artificial heartbeat of an electronic pacemaker leaking into the space around it. It's a device for receiving weak electrical signals emitted by pacemakers and turning them into vaguely erotic sounds. The device is rented for short periods of time like a book or video. The object is upholstered in flesh coloured leatherette, sounds are heard through an ear-nipple.
Thanks to: Gillian Crampton Smith, Lubna Hammoud, Dan Sellars, Nick Coombe, Spencer Childs.
The Faraday Chair is in the permanent collection of the Victoria & Albert Museum in London.
1. Faraday Chair: As electronic products escape their cases and leak into the space surrounding them, it might become necessary for people to seek shelter in specially constructed non-radio spaces or negative radios. To shield our homes would be a luxury only the rich could afford. The Faraday Chair provides shelter from electromagnetic fields invading our homes. It is a utilitarian shelter of minimum dimensions and comfort, it might even be a retreat, a new place to dream, away from the constant bombardment of telecomunication and electronic radiation.
2. The Pillow is an abstract radio for encouraging an awareness of the local electroclimate, a bit like weather equipment. It responds to changes in the local radio frequency environment within a range of 200 m, picking up mobile phones, pagers, walkie-talkies and even baby monitoring devices. It questions notions of privacy -- although the person listening to conversations is a social invader, the radiation from the phone call is invading their home and body.
3. Tuneable Cities explores new experiences of overlapping electromagnetic and urban environments. This proposal uses the car as an interface to explore interactions with existing and new systems. The most effective design intervention here is not at the level of the object, but its function. And it is through the medium of electronic products that new urban experiences are provided.
We programmed a radio scanner with some frequencies for baby intercoms and illegal bugging devices and drove around London mapping what we found. We produced maps to suggest these radio spaces were environments not just energy fields, something you can enter and occupy. On some streets in the suburbs, almost half the houses transmitted domestic soundscapes leaked through wireless babycoms.
Usually the car cuts us off from the environment, here it is intended to emphasise our connection. The car radio could reveal existing zones created by babycoms and illegal bugs, or it could connect to new specially designed radio spaces created by radio birds for instance.
4. The Thief of Affections is an exploration of design genres. If mainstream design is Hollywood, then this project is film noir. By renting it, you borrow a perspective on everyday life and try it out for size. You enter a narrative as a protagonist; you may not like it, but like a film or a story, this is part of the experience.
It's a sort of walkman for an otaku -- an alienated person in search of electronic affection. The thief?s object of their desire is the artificial heartbeat of an electronic pacemaker leaking into the space around it. It's a device for receiving weak electrical signals emitted by pacemakers and turning them into vaguely erotic sounds. The device is rented for short periods of time like a book or video. The object is upholstered in flesh coloured leatherette, sounds are heard through an ear-nipple.
Thanks to: Gillian Crampton Smith, Lubna Hammoud, Dan Sellars, Nick Coombe, Spencer Childs.
The Faraday Chair is in the permanent collection of the Victoria & Albert Museum in London.