image archive 2018

Image archive for research exploring speculative design, design fictions, sci fi, beauty, and futurology.

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Branko Lukic

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Installation and exhibition design for Sony Playstation, Giro, and Moss by Mauk Design (~1998-2003) Our twitter is: twitter.com/y2k_aesthetic

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Preface, Speculative Everything, Dunne and Raby (2014)

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A Marilyn Monroe robot, by Japanese inventor, Shunichi Mizuno. 1982.

No thank you.

(Images from the great site, Cybernetic Zoo.)

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Knowledge Navigator (1987), Apple

In Apple Computer's 1987 vision of the future (approximately 2011), industrial design has not changed for over two decades, we stand around drinking coffee while a computer-generated guy in a bow tie encourages passive-aggressive family avoidance tactics. They should have called it Knowledge Aggravator.

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Athenian Table (2010), Branko Lukic, from the book Nonobject

“Too short? Sit on a telephone book. Too tall? Slouch. Too handicapped? Too bad.” The Athenian table is reconfigurable to accommodate multiple abilities and heights. Nonobject focuses on designing products with “What if” prompts. This allows Lukic to explore the speculative realm while working still under many existing conventions of product design. This produces absurd, sensitive, and beautiful projects.

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Priester Matches Ad (1905)

Lucian Bernhard

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The Blind (2009), Institute for Critical Zoology

https://www.criticalzoologists.org/last/index.html

“Blinds, or nature hides, are often helpful in the pursuit of and observation of wild animals. But what blind is right for the contemporary zoologist? [...] The Blind works on the principal that an object vanishes from sight if light rays striking it are not reflected as usual, but forced to flow around it and carry on, as if it was not there.”

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Acoustic Botany (2010), David Benque 

https://davidbenque.com/projects/acoustic-botany/

“Desired traits such as volume, timbre and harmony are acquired through selective breeding techniques.”

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NOT HERE, NOT NOW, 2014, Dunne & Raby, http://www.dunneandraby.co.uk/content/projects/744/0 

“Not Here, Not Now is a speculative design project in which Dunne & Raby present different interfaces for an alternative world, not here not now. The large photographic prints present images of different interfaces. The titles hint at the function and purpose of these interfaces in that given society. As such, the interfaces are portals to those alternative societies. The work in itself is not so much about the interfaces or the actions one performs with them, but about the society they sit in, the world they evoke and the values and norms that make that world go round.” 

1. Stop & Scan Device

2. Publi-Voice Device

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TECHNOLOGICAL DREAMS SERIES: NO.1, ROBOTS, 2007, Dunne & Raby, http://www.dunneandraby.co.uk/content/projects/10/0

Dunne & Raby make these robots inviting and unassuming by fitting them into the aesthetics of here + now.

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Inflatable and gel-filled clothing by Inflate & Flora McLean of House of Flora (1995)

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‘Gel-Phones’ - Alcatel concepts (2001)

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Ex machina. Directed by Alex Garland. Universal Pictures, 2015.

Ava & Kyoko 

Attributing human-like features such as sexuality or consciousness to non-human designs

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“Concoon” Spa Capsule (2011) by Wasserbetten 

This spa capsule is almost identical to Roger and Martin Dean’s Retreat Pod (see previous page, image 17). If a nod to the past, why? 

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Canon Ixus Summer Concept ‘Arancia’ APS film camera (2002) 

As I look at more images related to designers’ views on the future, the Y2K movement is becoming a point of interest. Designs from this era embody many of the same ideals of streamlining and pop art / design. Y2K utilizes emerging technologies as inspiration while portraying an underlying anxiety about the future.

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‘Eye’ Digital Camera for Olympus - Ross Lovegrove (1990) 

The only thing that gives away the function of this object is its lens. Really more blob than object