Latent Communication
Design Research - Experience Design - Prototyping
The power of material identity in defining tomorrow’s digital interactions
Role
Research
Thesis
2019
We can no longer comprehend the digital and physical impacts of a growing digital world.
With the digital world revealing itself evermore within the physical, the layers of abstractions of the digital are multiplying, making it more difficult to understand the material culture that is trying to follow the fluid nature of the digital culture.
As a result, there’s disengagement in the physical world which causes a greater unawareness of the continuous depletion of abiotic resources, on which we greatly depend to sustain the current digital culture. The digital interfaces mediating this culture are reshaping our senses and ourselves, progressively leading to the loss of haptic.
A Catalogue of Investigations
Latent Communication uses the power of material identity to question how humans will engage with the physical manifestation of the digital interactions in the future.
It looks into the implications of our digital dependency and how it generates a disengagement in the physical environment. The project uses the sense of touch to deconstruct digital interactions and explore new materialisation. It is presented in a collection of objects, each representing a different interaction when using a digital device. It essentially interprets with digital visualisation the meaning of touch as a form of communication.
As part of the project, 129 Grams of Matter, a research gathering scientific, historic and geologic information was designed to tell the story of the materials used to create an iPhone. This narrative was presented referring to the sense of touch, under the skin of a smartphone.
129 Grams of Matter
