Designed Realities Studio

Design Noir has been republished by Bloomsbury Visual Arts as part of their Radical Thinkers in Design series edited by Clive Dilnot and Eduardo Staszowski. With a new introduction by Alice Twemlow.

Design Noir has been republished by Bloomsbury Visual Arts as part of their Radical Thinkers in Design series edited by Clive Dilnot and Eduardo Staszowski. With a new introduction by Alice Twemlow.

She attempted, and failed (nicely) to cast the inside of her room in parts, seeking solace in rendered objects inspired by discarded everyday objects. Slowly, the documentation of experiments, observations and reflections became the project.

‘No New Forms’ by Emily Mullaney. Surfacing inner conflicts and tensions between working with matter and its resistive nature on the one hand, and the seductive and transformative nature of digital media on the other. (UtransLab 21)

Six Sides by Olivier Brueckner focusses on how living and working in one room for many months shifted how he began to think about space, distance, proximity, inside and outside, orientation, etc. (UtransLab 2021)

Video still from Wesley Chau’s Coop, a speculative fiction about a community of humans co-existing with chickens. (UtransLab 2021)

Video still from Wesley Chau’s Coop, a speculative fiction about a community of humans co-existing with chickens. (UtransLab 2021)

Ayushi Jain’s exploration, using Jainism, of the current boundaries and possibilities of the ‘complaint report worksheet’ used by the NYPD to register any criminal activity (Between the Silos 2021).

Sketches for some work-in-progress on diplomatic gifts. Part of the ongoing archive of impossible objects.

Sketches for some work-in-progress on diplomatic gifts. Part of the ongoing archive of impossible objects.

WiP: Model (Imaginative Mobilities)

WiP: Model (Imaginative Mobilities)

Biomia: An experiment in interdisciplinary imagining. Illustration by Kyung-Me and David Linchen in response to a series of discussions with a group of faculty and students across The New School exploring the idea of the microbiome as a lens for thinking about and re-imagining mobility, boundaries, and space. (Imaginative Mobilities)

Drone Model (Imaginative Mobilities).

Drone Model (Imaginative Mobilities).

Unreal by Design (Work in Progress). With reference to Quentin Meillassoux (Extro-Science Fiction), John Law (Reals, Fractiverse), Ursula K. Le Guin (Larger Reality), and Ziauddin Sardar (Post Normal Times)

WiP: Imaginative Mobilities

WiP: Imaginative Mobilities

In her project ‘Unseers’, Sagarika Sundarem (MFA Textiles) worked with felted wool, and natural dyeing and craft techniques from India and other parts of the world, a textile that was first made by pastoral nomads over 10,000 years ago. (UtransLab 2020)

As part of his thesis work in MFA Textiles, Peter Salera used our class to develop a back story for his studio work. A set of extracts from a future anthropological document that attempts, in a gently humorous way, to retrospectively interpret the cosmology underlying his objects which make use of salvaged cables. (UtransLab 2020)

Clip from June Lee’s video essay ‘A Post-Work Renter’s Paradise’ (UTransLab 2020)

Installation proposal for June Lee’s video essay ‘A Post-Work Renter’s Paradise’ (UTransLab 2020)

Installation proposal for June Lee’s video essay ‘A Post-Work Renter’s Paradise’ (UTransLab 2020)

Clip from Julia Szagdaj’s Accentful Anthem (UTransLab 2020)

Still from June Lee’s video essay ‘A Post-Work Renter’s Paradise’ (UTransLab 2020)

Still from June Lee’s video essay ‘A Post-Work Renter’s Paradise’ (UTransLab 2020)

Miriam Young’s ‘Species in Dialogue’ built on techniques from screenwriting to explore ways of using language to draw other living and nonliving entities into scenario writing (UTransLab 2020).

Miriam Young’s ‘Species in Dialogue’ built on techniques from screenwriting to explore ways of using language to draw other living and nonliving entities into scenario writing (UTransLab 2020).

Kalyani Tupkary, Moon Calendar (UtransLab Class 2020)

Kalayni Tupkary’s Calendar Collective is a living archive of alternate calendars. It is an ongoing investigation for collecting, cataloguing and publishing calendars that are little-known to our world. (UTransLab Class 2020)

Kalyani Tupkary, Drift Calendar (UtransLab Class 2020)

Kalyani Tupkary, Drift Calendar (UtransLab Class 2020)

Realists of a Larger Reality: Globes, at the Center Pompidou. Photo credit: Center Pompidou / Audrey Laurans

Realists of a Larger Reality: Globes, at the Center Pompidou. Photo credit: Center Pompidou / Audrey Laurans

Work in Progress (Imaginative Mobilities)

Work in Progress (Imaginative Mobilities)

A conversation with Mariana Pestana about our Archive of Impossible Objects workshop for the Porto Biennale.

One way of thinking about possible objects is as objects that reinforce the existing status quo, whereas impossible objects exist beyond the constantly shifting border between the real and the unreal. Not unreal in the sense they defy the laws of physics, but because they don’t fit our current worldview, our ‘real’, which is just one amongst many (im)possibilities.

A conversation with Mariana Pestana about our Archive of Impossible Objects workshop for the Porto Biennale.