Project Statement

A critical glimpse into prospective generations of design

We have entered the beginnings of a previously imaginative world. Technologies that our culture had accepted as fiction are now becoming increasingly available and as designers we are faced with adapting to this new environment.

What kinds of technology will exist in this new dynamic landscape? What will happen to printed media as more interactive and efficient ways of gathering information become available? We aim to start a conversation about design in this immersive, technological world.

Informed by contemporary technologies and futurist theory, we will envision the potential visual landscape of the next several decades through speculative and critical projects.

Introduction

Future Sight aims to investigate tomorrow

Future Sight was a presentation given on 4.21.15 by Ethan Blouin and Evan Eagan of the works produced during a semester spent studying and hypothesizing about the future.

To guide this process, it was decided that there were assumptions we could make about certain near future technologies and their inevitable developments. These would serve as affordances with which we could begin to outline the silhouette of a world we could expect with realistic potential. Among these were increases in internet connection speeds and internet availability, increased mobile speed standards, and an overall increase in the connection of devices and things.

Our discussion began circling around the theme of the Internet of Things and the excitement it had stirred in recent years. How will our world change when everything is connected to the internet? Your shower could know who you are and what temperature you like your water. Our preferences in virtually anything can be quantified and reused, allowing for the tailoring of our world to be more relevant to us specifically.

During our hypothesizing it came to our attention that the more and more ways in which we were connected to the internet, the more data we were by nature producing. Coupled with the notion that our data could be used for our benefit and a society thirsty for efficiency, we had a recipe for a world where relevant content could easily be bountiful and standardized. 

What happens when the data we produce every day simply by interacting with the internet is used intelligently for us? Will advertising finally stop being a burden to its viewers when the billboards we see are for things only we like? How could this go on to affect other industries; what if our printed media some how became as relevant?

Affordances

What do we know about the future?

INSTANT EVERYTHING
5G mobile speeds in the next inevitably with near zero latency and totally universal internet not too long after that.

NEW PLAYING FIELDS
Optimized augmented and virtual realities.

THE INTERNET OF THINGS 
A world of devices connected to the internet acting together independently of human interaction.