Designed Realities Studio

The many worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics is a common trope in literature and cinema. But how might it play out in design? Shashwath Santosh adopted a many-worldian mindset and set about exploring the emotions this might give rise to on the streets of Manhattan (Quantum Commonsense 2022).

Glyphs of Another World by Ardak Mukanova draws on traditions of nomadic shamanism in Kazakhstan to explore how petroglyphs, which have been present in her culture for millennia, might appear today (Designed Realities 2022).

Near Future Laboratory Podcast: Dunne & Raby in conversation with Julian Bleecker

Near Future Laboratory Podcast: Dunne & Raby in conversation with Julian Bleecker

Material Imaginaries, a collaborative essay with Victoria Hattam and Miriam Ticktin for Perspecta 54: Atopia

Scholarship is often distinguished from creative work: real versus fiction. Yet imagination plays a role in scholarship, just as research plays a role in creative work. What are the conditions for generative thinking in both cases? What allows for imaginative leaps – for instance, what enables us to see things differently, to bring two very different ideas or objects together, or to open new ways of thinking? And what is the relationship between imagination and materialization—is materialization a way of imagining?

Material Imaginaries, a collaborative essay with Victoria Hattam and Miriam Ticktin for Perspecta 54: Atopia

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. (Designed Realities 2021)

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. (Designed Realities 2021)

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

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

An Archive of Impossible Objects (workshop): Starting with Momus’ statement that “every lie creates a parallel world, the world in which it is true”, Nestor Pestana proposed 4 (impossible) masks for navigating the parallel, orthogonal, elastic and bent realities created by politicians’ lies.

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. (Designed Realities 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. (Designed Realities 2020)

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

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

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

Clip from Julia Szagdaj’s Accentful Anthem (Designed Realities 2020)

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

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

Kalyani Tupkary, Moon Calendar (Designed Realities 2020)