The ways people invision the future has always been an important influence to my work. Others might look at the past to predict the future; some might look to science fiction. I practice looking at what is not being looked at and, through design research, endeavor to bring unique, new futures into vision.

There are 26 new screen devices in Microsoft's vision 2019.1 Most current visions of the future depict an environment of screen saturation, where anything and everything is a display. At present, a significant amount of research is being conducted to produce a range of digital readers, tablet computers and flexible screen surfaces. Screens are both mobile and monolithic in our society and will be increasingly ubiquitous. While these technologies offer exciting design possibilities, they could also serve as evidence for a societal obsession with the pixel. What is it about the screen that entices us to relinquish the complex physical world and exquisite capacity of the whole body in exchange for hours of pixels and finger clicks? What affects will a screen saturated world have on human bodies existing in this environment? These types of questions serve as the impetus to investigating possible alternative futures to the over depicted mono-planar pixel land.

Another typical scene which depicts a vision of the future is characterized by someone using a new device to cleanly and efficiently communicate with another person, likely in an opposite location somewhere in the world. These scenes are magical and attractive to society as a whole. This phenomenon of clean communication seems to indicate a cultural fascination with speed and instantaneity. But what of communication that is less pervasive more nuanced and passive? Could new modes of communication emerge that are similar in process to the way body language is interpreted and understood? Could it be just as useful to use devices which require some amount of interpretation and acceptance of ambiguity? Texture / Touch / Meaning turns away from efficiency and clarity and seeks to define a future with an abundance of unique and individualized communication options.

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