Thoughts, ramblings and experiments in making sense of a complex Future

Some golden nuggets from ‘I’m Here’, a short story about love in an Absolut World by Spike Jonze.

Man: “What do you mean? We (robots) cant dream!”

Woman: “Of course you can, you just make it up!”

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Man: “…This dream was easily the best dream in the history of all dreams”.

A library assistant plods through an ordinary life in LA until a chance meeting opens his eyes to a the power of creativity and ultimately, love. When this new life and love begin to fall apart, he discovers he has a lot to give. This short film proves that ordinary is no place to be. (via IMDB)

View the trailer here…

I was reading some essays on Design Fiction by Julian Bleecker recently and was especially struck by this film after reading it. ‘I’m Here’ is such a perfectly imagined and made work of design-fiction in the sense that it makes you completely believe in the World which is created here. Not only are the ‘props’ and costumes entirely authentic, the fact that its set in the Almost Present makes the impact breathtakingly moving and simple. It focuses on human/robotic emotion while keeping the work of design very secondary.

This scene in the movie was such a brilliant piece of architectural fiction. It almost made me believe that such hospitals exist.

My moral from this story – A truly moving piece of design fiction is infinitesimally more valuable than a billion half-resolved design truths.

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The Story of Stuff Project was created by Annie Leonard to leverage and extend the film’s impact. We amplify public discourse on a series of environmental, social and economic concerns and facilitate the growing Story of Stuff community’s involvement in strategic efforts to build a more sustainable and just world. Our on-line community includes over 150,000 activists and we partner with hundreds of environmental and social justice organizations worldwide to create and distribute our films, curricula and other content.

Probably old news to most design colleagues, but I thought I’d post it on the blog for keepsakes.

Link here.

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This was a project done by my dear friend Sara Tunheden at the Interactive Institute in Stockholm.

BoEL is an experimental social ambient interface and web service that presents daily consumption figures to home owners and neighbours to promote joint savings and foster competitive energy saving behaviours. The service includes an ambient lamp that provides feedback on the energy consumption in the household and these interfaces are installed so that the neighbours can observe each others energy status.

This is one of the many projects the II is working on to spread awareness about energy consumption through design provocations and probes that affect behavior positively.

Oh, and I happened to play a cameo in her amazing video too! This is an edited version. Hopefully I’ll get my hands on the full version soon!

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via Laughing Squid

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(via FastCompany)

It’s a cliche to say that Minority Report-style interfaces are just around the corner. But not when John Underkoffler is involved. As tech advistor on the film, he was the guy whose work actually inspired the interfaces that Tom Cruise used. The real-life system he’s been developing, called g-speak, is unbelievable.

We’ve previously covered Underkoffler and his startup, Oblong, but in February, he unveiled his latest work at TED. The video was just recently put online. And. It. Will. Blow. Your. Mind.

The video is 15 minutes long, but fast forward to 6:30 if you want to zip straight to the trippy stuff.

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Presentation at the conference »Innovationsforum Interaktionsdesign« in Potsdam, Germany. The talk was held on 31. March 2007.

The Innovationsforum Interaktionsdesign was organised by the Interface Design programme of the University of Applied Sciences Potsdam.

Conference web site: http://interface.fh-potsdam.de/innoforum

Interface Design programme: http://interface.fh-potsdam.de

Presentation at the conference »Innovationsforum Interaktionsdesign« in Potsdam, Germany. The talk was held on 30. March 2007.

The Innovationsforum Interaktionsdesign was organised by the Interface Design programme of the University of Applied Sciences Potsdam.

Conference web site: http://interface.fh-potsdam.de/innoforum

Interface Design programme: http://interface.fh-potsdam.de

Presentation at the conference »Innovationsforum Interaktionsdesign« in Potsdam, Germany. The talk was held on 31. March 2007.

The Innovationsforum Interaktionsdesign was organised by the Interface Design programme of the University of Applied Sciences Potsdam.

Conference web site: http://interface.fh-potsdam.de/innoforum

Interface Design programme: http://interface.fh-potsdam.de

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This is Alan Chochinov’s presentation at IxD10 (Savannah).

Allan Chochinov-Girls and Women: Objects Lessons in the Primacy of Interaction from Interaction Design Association on Vimeo.

I posted the video to the blog for 2 reasons

a) It is hugely inspiring. To quote 4 key learnings by Chochinov (during his course at the SVA, New York) in the closing parts of his presentation -

Raise the Stakes: Make it Personal, Make it Urgent

Intervene: Design your products as if they were props in an intervention.

Dont Play Fair: Act like a design thinker, but think like a design activist.

Facilitate: Its not what you design, its not what you make – its what you facilitate.

b) The work shown in the presentation is yet another indicator toward ‘Design Fiction’ explorations which we currently need more of perhaps at Umea. (sorry, US keyboard!)

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Less problem solving by design alone, and more of design-intentions explicit through fiction. For want of a better word – storytelling. (…puke!)

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