Technology can be alienating to all generations. The lack of understanding and the lack of a desire to understand can prevent an interaction with that technology. Yesterday, on a late evening stroll down Via Savona I was enticed into a small courtyard gallery, not knowing what to expect I worked my way through the space coming across an inviting darkened door way. The press desk on the left packed with too many inquisitive sales people asking where i was from made me realise the formal nature of this exhibition.
Finally I entered through the small doorway into a space that appeared infinite, mirrors in the shape of arches lined the walls surrounded by shimmering floor to ceiling silver fabric. The space was dark, the only light coming from hanging light bulbs on long black wires suspended from the ceiling. They were randomly positioned and hanging at different heights, some by my waist, some far above my head, all emitting a soft pulsing glow, alternating and changing. The space as a whole was designed to create an enveloping experience, even down to the flooring. A loose cream coloured gravel was laid, creating a crunchy surprising texture under my feet that encouraged me to explore and move between the bulbs.
This installation was created as a showcase for some LEDs engineered by Toshiba, a single element as part of a whole sensory experience. So this was the technology, nothing particularly intimidating, but certainly something that can be uninviting to a lot of people, cold and unfamiliar. But essentially light is the very basis of human nature, its life giving properties are what draw us to it, like a moth to a flame or a bee to a bulb. So this is where Toshiba realised that they needed more than technology to sell their product, they invited a group of Japanese architects to create an installation that would make it approachable and understandable to humans.
By using the recognisable archetype of a light bulb to house the technology, a familiar object that signifies warmth and security, offering light and interaction beyond the daylight hours, it immediately had a human attachment. They were slightly oversized, big enough to hold in two hands and were half filled with water, another pre-requisite of human existence. The function of the water was to create a circuit between the metal connectors, and when making contact with it, the heat from a human hand magnified the light intensity of the LED. It responded with a pulsing electric beat, this combined with the round globe shape and the delicacy of the water filled glass suggesting its vulnerability invited you to cradle it as if it belonged to you, appealing to my maternal instincts. Human contact is what brought this technology to life, responding to our touch.
The need to resort to an old, outdated language such as a light bulb to make a new technology more digestible for humans, is perhaps the direction design and consumer electronics will go. Adopting the familiarity of the past to sell technologies of the future.
Perhaps this is the best way for us to understand and consume these new technologies, perhaps we have already had the future, and the future as was perceived to be in the past didn’t work, and was alienating and confusing. Particularly drawing on a visit to Tokyo a few years ago, I certainly felt like they had tried the flashy, shiny illuminated city scape we expect to see in a technological, utopian future, envisaged by some, and it didn’t work, instead appearing to be a dated and isolated version of our previous visions of the future. A return to human needs and an understanding of the benefit of new technologies and how they can relate to us as sensitive, emotional human beings should be the future, almost a rejection of the perceived future and a return to the past
And this should be the role of a designer, creating a usable interface between the technology and the human.
I would recommend a visit, as a refreshing cleansing of the palette amongst the chaos and confusion of a design crammed Zona Tortona.
Toshiba,
c/o Design Library,
via Savona 11
Words & Images : Edward Vince