MIXED REALITY FURNITURE: MAKE ROOM FOR THE INTERFACE (2019)

A Graduate Media Design Practices Course 
Lead Faculty, Co-Taught with Benjamin Borden


Our increasingly immersive interfaces -- cellphones, VR, and AR technologies -- are redecorating our physical spaces, from how they function to how we live within them. Challenging the concept of ‘home’, [(1:) the place where one lives without interruption; (2:) an interaction design term for ‘a place to return  to’], we’ve developed new interior ideals, based on external digital features, notification routines, and on-screen sceneries.

Rooted in the practice of decoration, designers are experts in attracting and moving the eye. In this studio we will fully embrace this historic design practice, imagining new interface lifestyles, where we, our things, and our spaces resides in multiple places at once [Part of the furniture: [1] a person or thing that has been somewhere so long as to seem a permanent, unquestioned feature]. We will explore new interior/exterior decor, mixed reality functionality, and avant-garde aesthetics. Rather than falling into the stereotypical narrative of ‘screen time is bad’, we will explore new ways of calling for attention, versus asking for no attention, and exploring periphery structures.