Design Line: 27 January - 2 February
How should we design digital spaces? Do you want a chip in your brain? Does “emerging designers” work as a classification system? And what is AR even for? This week’s Design Line looks at some of the conundrums and questions that the industry is engaged with.
The man and machine who want to implant your brain (image by Steve Jurvetson, via Flickr).
Branding the brain
Not one to let a big occasion go un-tweeted (or is that un-xed?), Elon Musk this week announced that the first human has had a Neuralink chip implanted onto the surface of their brain via surgery, allowing them to use it to communicate with computers. The news was announced by Musk, founder of Neuralink, on Monday evening, who stated that the patient is recovering. In addition to this, and presumably in some kind of entrepreneurial marketing fit, Musk also announced that the first Neuralink product will be named Telepathy. Despite the furore that greeted the announcement, this is not actually the first case of brain-computer interfaces in humans. Similar procedures have already taken place, led by different teams of researchers for patients who are paraplegic or paralysed. In 2021, a team at the University of Stanford, California, for instance, were able to use two small sensors implanted just beneath the surface of the brain of a man who was paralysed below the neck, to interpret the patient’s brain signals and convert this onto text on a screen. This new test, then, will be Neuralink’s chance to show that its product is commercially safe and one step closer to offering “Telepathy” to a consumer audience. But with the large number of cruel and painful failed experiements that took place in Neuralink’s animal testing stages, one wonders whether Musk has been too quick to brand a technology that remains in testing stages – surprising for a figure who is normally so measured and calm in his pronouncements, we know.
A new zine encourages us to ponder why emojis don’t have wrinkles and other digital design oddities (image courtesy of Luna Maurer and Roel Wouters and Hato Press).
Bringing friction back
Friction has a bad rep, being associated with the likes of social awkwardness, conflict, or the terrible squeak of chalk being dragged across a blackboard. But what if friction could shake off its haters and be appreciated for all the good it can do (velcro, preventing slipping over on sidewalks, and creating fire to name a few)? Here to champion the case for friction, specifically in the digital sphere, is a new zine by designers Roel Wouters and Luna Maurer (formerly Studio Monkier). Its catchy title Emoticons Don’t Have Wrinkles alludes to the fact that digital technology, as well as the little smileys that live on it, are built on design principles of smoothness, simplification, convenience and efficiency. While this may be helpful in principle, Wouters and Maurer argue that this removes the sense of humanness from our digital interactions and lives. The zine, they say, is a “proposal to change the way we think when producing or interacting with digital technology,” and has grown from their Designing Friction manifesto and performative video series Emotional Talks. It is the 44th zine published by Hato Press in its Zine Series project and finds itself in good company with previous editions by designer Michael Marriott, writer Haydee Touitou, and artists and illustrator Kentaro Okawara among others. “Friction,” they argue “might in fact be a possibility for connection.” Maybe it’s time to embrace our wrinkles as well as digital designs full of friction and feeling.
An archive tour with a personal touch, led by Llisa Demetrios (image by Nicholas Calcott, courtesy of the Eames Institute).
Family Lore
When, as a child, Llisa Demetrios told her grandfather Charles Eames that she did not like the salad they were eating for dinner, his response was not to admonish her. Instead, he asked, “What would you do differently? How would you make it better?”. Her feedback on what she’d remove and add was taken on board and the next time that salad was made it was much improved. This is one of the many stories about growing up with the iconic designers Charles and Ray Eames as grandparents that you might be lucky enough to hear from Demetrios herself at the newly opened Eames Archives in Richmond, California. The gallery, its 40,000+ collection of objects, and study centre are accessible only through pre-booked tours. Hosted by Demetrios, who is the chief curator, the tours offer a uniquely personal perspective of the work. There are no labels or captions in the space; instead, Demetrios offers her huge depth of knowledge to visitors, highlighting idiosyncratic details such as notes on the undersides of chairs and explaining technical decisions through the many prototypes she grew up with. Whether designing a chair through stress testing or making a salad, Demetrios explains, her grandparents were always seeking to understand how things could be improved. It is this ever-iterative, intensely curious and good-humoured approach to the world that shines through in the archive and the many stories it contains. Disegno highly recommends a visit.
A worthy winner (Image by Joost Verpoort, courtesy of the Design Museum).
Emerging practice
Visitors to London’s Design Museum this spring should be in for a treat, with the museum this week having opened a free display of the work of designer Attua Aparicio Torinos, the third recipient of its Ralph Saltzman Prize. Dedicated to “emerging product designers”, the scheme aims to promote the work of less heralded designers and introduce their practice to a broader public. In Aparicio Torinos – a designer whose solo practice (as well as her earlier collaborative work as part of Silo Studio) evidences wit, material daring, and experimental construction – the scheme has chosen a worthy winner: she is an exciting practitioner who more people should know. The same, of course, might have been said of the other nominees for the prize (Astronauts, Tabatha Pearce Chedier, Jacob Marks and Micaella Pedros), however, which reveals the age-old challenge of any design competition: how can you meaningfully compare different practitioners, working in different ways, particularly when the sole criteria for judgment is that they be deemed “emerging” (a term that is nebulous at the best of times)? It is a tricky knot to unpick, particularly for the prize’s judges who are forced to elect a single winner, but fortunately there is an easy solution for the general public: visitors to the Design Museum can enjoy Aparicio Torinos’s exhibition in-person, before exploring the other nominees’ practices remotely. All five of these studios are worth knowing – why choose if you don’t have to?
Better, bolder and with the just the same questions as before, the Apple Vision Pro hits the shelves (image courtesy of Apple).
Clouded vision?
The reviews are in for Apple’s Vision Pro headset, which goes on sale today, and the early consensus seems to be what most commentators imagined ahead of its launch: the device is a technical triumph, but one that leads the industry no closer to understanding who or what “spatial computing” is actually for. Writing in The Verge, Nilay Patel praised “the best consumer headset anyone’s ever made”, highlighting its build quality and “huge leap forward in display technology”, but remained sceptical about the idea that AR or VR devices represent a meaningful advance upon existing forms of computer interface: “Apple may have inadvertently revealed that some of [the Vision Pro’s] core ideas are actually dead ends — that they can’t ever be executed well enough to become mainstream.” In the New York Times, meanwhile, Kevin Roose hailed a device that is “leaps and bounds better than the previous best [VR] headsets on the market”, but still raised concerns over its price, comfort, and application. “I still have no idea whom or what this thing is supposed to be for,” Roose noted. “At $3,500, it’s not a device for the masses, or even the mass affluent. It’s a big, honking statement piece – a status symbol for your face.” The Vision Pro, then, seems to exist in a kind of limbo: as a tech demo, it is an undoubted hit, but whether the tech it demonstrates represents a desirable future remains up for debate.