a thousand tomorrows » visualization

the quantum parallelograph

Nik — Wed, 10 Aug 2011 17:25:25 +0000

Designer and University of Dundee graduate, Patrick Stevenson-Keating became inspired “by the pioneering work of Professor David Deutsch of Oxford University, and the earlier work of Professor Hugh Everett, who argue for infinite copies of ourselves existing within multiple universes”.

As such he developed the quantum parallelograph, a device enabling users to explore the lives of their parallel selves in parallel versions of the universe. At the turn of a knob and the touch of a button, the device spits out a cash-register like receipt of your life in another parallel world. Hence, through a glimpse at their alternative selves and the world they live in, people are implicitly provoked to question their uniqueness and ponder about physics in general. Another subtle example of critical design or design for debate, a field we are particularly fond of and like to experiment with over here at Pantopicon.

The direct link with alternative worlds links this particular example even more closely with the realm of foresight and scenario analysis. Imagine a few extra knobs or levers to set parameters on future developments and you’d have a tangible future scenario-generator, yourself as persona included!

Keep up the good work, Patrick!

N.E.M.O. project

Nik — Tue, 26 Apr 2011 09:50:15 +0000

Look at any megatrend overview and ‘migration‘ will be mentioned somewhere, somehow as a significant driver of change. The recent events in Northern Africa have made it clear once again that events of major socio-political and socio-economic change catalyze the push and pull dynamics of migration. The recurring images of sinking boats of African immigrants as they try to make it across the Mediterranean to the Italian island of Lampedusa in the past few weeks are a painful example of the challenges posed.

Félix de Montesquiou and Hugo Kaici – architecture students at the Ecole Spéciale d’Architecture in Paris – decided to give architectural shape to the migration debate and a world in which illegal trafficking of people across the channel is cast in stone. In a neat piece of design fiction, they envisioned N.E.M.O. – the Northern Europe Migrants Organisation – an organization with headquarters disguised as a WWII bunker near the port of Calais in France. N.E.M.O. would help customers migrate illegally from Europe to the UK.

Via Dezeen

futurestates

Nik — Mon, 18 Apr 2011 13:38:36 +0000

“What if you were given a glimpse into what America will be like 20, 30, or even 50 years from now? Would it change the way you live today?” Spurred by these questions the Independent Television Service launches the second season of Futurestates on PBS. Ten short films portray ten visions of the future by ten indie filmmakers. Stories gravitate towards issues concerning environmental and economic challenges, but also revolve around soci-cultural topics.

There appears to be a surge in attention across media towards speculative – what if …? – futures as a genre rather than straight-up scifi, an evolution which is fascinating to say the least. It remains up to the critical eye of the beholder to decide to which extent the Futurestates short-films paint stimulating futures – whether bleak or encouraging – or rather mostly project extrapolations of today’s sentiments and challenges. Moreover, considering shifting geopolitical, geosocial, geoeconomic, geo-everything balances, it would be enriching to see more examples of how people from other countries, other cultures envision their futures. Not only would they bring other types of narratives, they would also pose different questions, paint different solutions to the samen and different challenges.

a touch of glass

Nik — Fri, 08 Apr 2011 09:44:11 +0000

High-end glass (and ceramics) producer Corning recently created a nice video showing a day in the life of a family in a world of … glass. The video basically shows the world as one big touch screen (without greasy fingers). Obviously, from today’s perspective, the success of touchscreens are one big pointer to a future of ‘more’. Yet, there are also various elements equally present in today’s world that point in other directions.

One the one hand, while there is plenty of room for innovative and more natural interaction patterns – touch definitely being one of them, but also gesture of course – there are also plenty of worries abound that the increasing amounts of information, presented visually in our daily environments, are leading to situations of sensorial and cognitive overload on the user end. On the other hand, glass is not the only material able to render surfaces and the world around us interactive. Just think about all the advances in smart textiles (check out also Ryan and Francesca’s inspiring work over at CuteCircuit as well as that of Marina over at by-wire) or the skin as an interface (see also CMU’s Chris Harrison’s Skinput and a previous blogpost on “skinterfaces“).

The future of touch also goes beyond the ‘one-way’ touch that we are currently used to. Bayer Material Science and its subsidiary Artificial Muscle for example, developed electroactive polymers that enable devices and screens to provide tactile feedback. In other words, the surface might be smooth, but you feel texture.

On a sidenote … While many still associate the advent of touch screens with the launch of the iPhone and derivatives or Jeff Han‘s large-format interactive screens, the history of many of the interaction patterns involved goes back to the nineties. In 1999, for example, the former GMD-IPSI’s (now Frauenhofer-IPSI) Ambiente Lab – active in CSCW and other areas – presented their vision of workplaces of the future entitled i-LAND. Already, one could tap, swipe, even push documents from an interactive table to an interactive wall.

Image is still from the Corning video

smoke signals

Nik — Wed, 09 Feb 2011 20:39:57 +0000

Aesthetics are about more than ‘spicing things up’, rendering them ‘more beautiful’. In information design, meaning is core. As the world becomes more layered, as data becomes ever more important, we increasingly need innovative ways to bring insight and calm to complexity. Check out Visual Complexity and InfoSthetics for example. But the art and science of this matter is not limited to paper or screen, as the following example shows.

Danish architecture firm Bjarne Ingels Group (aka BIG) and our friends over at realities:united won an international competition to design a new waste-to-energy plant for Copenhagen (DK). The Amagerforbraending will not only burn waste and convert it to energy, its 31.000m2 rooftop will also feature skiing slopes of varying degrees of difficulty for Copenhagen’s citizens, turning the building into a pole of attraction in its own right, thereby changing the relationship between people and waste, energy, etc. While doing its job, the building will blow smoke rings into the air.

Each smoke ring, approximately 30 meters in diameter and 3 meter in height, constitutes exactly one ton of fossil carbon dioxide, which is added to the atmosphere. [...] “Exploiting the so called Bernoulli effect these rings will remain stable for up to several minutes, serving as a gentle reminder of the impact of consumption and a measuring stick that will allow the common Copenhagener to grasp the CO2 emission in a straightforward way – turning the smokestack – traditionally the symbol of the industrial era – into a communicator for the future”, [says] Jan Edler, Artist, realities:united [...] At night, heat tracking lights will be used to position lasers onto the smoke rings turning them into glowing, communicative artworks. As proposed pie chart will be projected onto the smoke, where the actual quota of fossil CO2 can be read.

In designing for behavioral change, rendering the invisible visible, the complex insightful and understandable are an important first step.

Via realities:united
Image courtesy of realities:united

Elina Hiltunen: weak signals & future signs

robots

Nik — Fri, 10 Sep 2010 14:22:09 +0000

BaR2D2 serves drinks, Asimo walks the planet as man’s new best friend, NASA’s Robonaut 2 takes to space and loves to twitter. Robots continue to inspire. Several exhibitions currently on show give a glimpse of some highly creative – even poetic – robotic tinkering by artists.

Hangar311 in Mechelen (B), puts the inspiring work of Stéphane Halleux on show. Tinguely meets ToyStory in a steampunk version.

Our friends over at the Maison d’Ailleurs in Yverdon-les-Bains (CH) focus on the work of new media artist, author and theorist Ken Rinaldo in their exhibition entitled “Do robots dream of spring?”.

Ken Rinaldo’s art promotes communication between species. By creating immersive environments, the artist presents works to be experienced. He puts human beings in our rightful place, one that is integrated into vast systems, of which we are simultaneously the architects, the prisoners and the custodians. He shows us that our environment is an immense meeting place where worlds collide, a place of shifting borders, which he encourages us to explore.

The Tinguely Museum (in cooperation with Kunsthaus Graz) takes a closer look at artificial intelligence and robotics in their 1000m2 exhibition Robot Dreams.

Enjoy!

the power of 8

Nik — Thu, 21 Jan 2010 21:17:06 +0000

We were delighted to take notice of another project which shares our passion for positive, optimistic futures! Our friend and much admired fellow design fiction future-storyteller Anab ‘Superflux‘ Jain was one of eight people (others included a biotechnologist, a policy advisor, a permaculturalist, an educator, a retired civil servant, an urban designer and an architect ) involved in a unique project which ran from June 1st 2009 to October 11th 2009 to imagine ‘optimistic futures’. Funded by the Arts Council England and Watermans Gallery, the Power of 8 was part of the London Design Festival 2009. The magnificent 8 welcome you to Acres Green …

“Rolling orchards stretched beyond us as we wandered through the edible gardens of Acres Green. Spots of colour peppered the greenery and branches hung low with the weight of ripening produce. As we looked closer we saw that each tree was actually growing different varieties of fruit. What we originally understood as a tangle of different trunks was actually an intricate technological graft. On parting the leaves we found strange flesh-like prosthesis that seemed to bind limbs from different species together. We realised that to maximise harvests the communities of Acres Green were experimenting with augmented orchards and designing strange new natures.”

Check out the Power of 8 website to feed on more, nifty futurefood incl. pan-city feral cidre businesses, Beamer Signum Apis Melifera aka beamer bees, living hills, flocking clouds, etc. Well done, 8!

Image courtesy of The Power of 8

feeling Earth’s heart beat

Nik — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 06:10:14 +0000

The Apollo mission gave us pictures of our planet from space. Finally we could behold our planet from a distance. We could look at it as an object on the table in front of us, within reach, and as we did our planetary awareness grew. Confronted with several planetary challenges now, our planetary conscience is now gradually shaping up as well. Aside from looking at our planet, NASA‘s Earth Observation System (EOS) reads our planet through satellite data. Access to this information is a prerequisite for learning to understand our planet better. Now we can not only look at our planet, Prof. Shin-ichi Takemura’s amazing Tangible Earth project allows us to interact with our planet and the data emerging from it by touch.

In view of coming up with solutions to the challenges we are facing, sensing our planet has become sheer necessity. We increasingly do so in real time as well: within mouseclick reach we check webcams on the other side of the planet, we can download data from weatherstations around the world, etc.
Until recently, the sensing world was pretty much the playing field of NASA and the likes. The future promises to be more open in this respect (see also open source efforts such as GSN) and consequently much larger – and since we’re talking data: more powerful. Years ago, in describing his wish of an Earth Witness Project, our fellow future explorer Jamais Cascio already pointed to opportunities opened up by the convergence between labs on chips, mobile phones and sharing networks to create an open global sensor network.

Now several companies and grassroots initiatives are preparing to put technology in the hands of citizens. Already we can deduce a lot of information from information we leak by the mere usage of our communication technology, as Carlo Ratti‘s Senseable cities team at MIT shows us. Nokia’s Eco Sensor Concept plans to make us more active participants in the game. Imagine millions of always-on, networked tricorder-like devices sensing our planet : local data + networks + sensemaking = global intelligence. Hewlett-Packard is developing the equivalent of a globally distributed stethoscope (CeNSE) to monitor our planet’s health, and look to nanotechnology as an enabling technology. “The motivation for this work is realising and understanding the planet is sick and the disease is us.”, says Dr Stan Williams of HP’s Information & Quantum Systems Laboratory.

An often forgotten challenge is how to use tech already out there to turn them into sensors for our health and that of our planet. Think about the tech equivalent of using ‘useless’ bath-tub ducks which fell off a ship, to study ocean currents.

vegetal city

Nik — Tue, 19 May 2009 15:04:58 +0000

Until the end of September 2009, the Musée du Cinquantenaire in Brussels showcases Vegetal City, an absolutely fascinating overview exhibition on the work of Luc Schuiten, the belgian visionary architect, illustrator, author. Years ago Schuiten started working on his archiborescence vision on urban development, as an alternative future to look out for, a way out of the current-day unsustainable impasse.

Vegetal city is a vision of a transformed society driven by a quest for sustainability in which notions of biomimicry provide for a solutioning framework.

“We can’t carry on with individualistic attitudes which boil down to ‘I’ll just do my own thing and let the rest of the world go by.’ We need to change the way our entire society thinks in order to make it compatible with the rest of the world of which it forms part, and on which it ultimately depends.”

Schuiten understands the power of stories to convey his vision. As such he moves beyond the mere aspect of ‘visualizing’ what one means.

Check out the unique exhibition and/or the book.

24 hours of innovation

Nik — Sun, 17 May 2009 18:33:48 +0000

The Board of Innovation – an initiative by friends and fellow belgian bloggers Nick De Mey (see mouseover.be) & Philippe De Ridder (see openinnovators.net) – kicks off its 24 hours of innovation today: a non-stop marathon of innovation initiatives.

Organizations big and small, national and international will take part in this unique online event. On the playlist are among others our one-time neighbours of AddictLab & Materio, our friends from FlandersDC, trendwatcher Richard Lamb, the City of Antwerp, Sun Microsystems, VisualDimension, Umicore, IdeaMonopoly, Betavine, Symnetics from Brazil, UAMS, Pfizer, URDT from Uganda, and many others. Keep your thumbs up, as Pantopicon participates as well (see here)!

Update: see our contributions “5 what if teasers” and “10 ways in which exploring & envisioning the future empowers innovation”. Thanks Nick & Philippe, another job well done!