Last month Casa Jasmina, with the support of Toolbox co-working and Fablab Torino, hosted for the entire February a workshop of School of Ma (School of Machines, Making & Make-Believe). The workshop was run by Sitraka Rakotoniaina and Andrew Friend with a three day participation of Iohanna Nicenboim.

The projects were based on speculative design and the results were presented at Casa Jasmina the 27th of February during our birthday.

But what about the projects? We are presenting in this blog-post two projects based on some speculations on the coming future…

The Empathy Bomber Backpack is a speculative object designed for the extreme activists of a near-future where biological contraband creates a chemical metaphor of the ‘empathy warfare’ that defines our globe today. If today activists use terror to send a blunt and devastating message, the activists of tomorrow have concocted a plan to go straight to the core of their intentions, to enforce genuine understanding through extreme measures. This futuristic Bomber Backpack was designed by Monique Grimord, interactive designer and social prototyper, with a master in Graphic Design from SCAD, and a background in political science. Monique lives in São Paulo, Brazil, where she invents objects for socio-political storytelling, using design fictions as a method of cultural commentary.

The second speculative project is Growing Trash by Matt Visco, a creative technologist whose work focuses on design interactions aimed at exposing the hidden elements of daily life. Matt’s work manifests itself in both digital and physical objects that contain embedded behaviors. Matt holds a degree in computer science from University of Berkeley, California and is currently working as a freelance developer and designer in Oakland, California.

Growing Trash aims to provoke these questions in its user. As the can fills, it grows taller to create more space. This encourages the user to be lazy, space becomes seemingly endless and the need to take out the trash disappears. As the trash can growa, taking out the trash becomes more challenging. The user is forced into a conundrum; either submit to complete laziness and let the trash pile up around the can or take initiative and put in the extra work to take out the trash. This object promotes laziness but due to it’s absurdity generates self-awareness and potentially leads to corrective behavior. Unread Cats takes this concept to the digital realm. When a user opens their gmail they are bombarded by videos of cats based on their amount of unread emails. If a user has only one unread email they only receive one cat video, a pleasant addition to checking mail. As the user gets lazier with reading their emails more cats videos appear. This promotes laziness by overwhelming you with funny yet mindless material for you to digest. The user is incentivized to not check their mail and watch cat videos instead. Again this promotes laziness by encouraging the user to watch these videos but in rendering your mail virtually ineffective over time it also creates a self-awareness.

Both Monique and Matt during the four weeks workshop, used all the Fablab‘s facilities and Genuino‘s boards to create the interaction and give life to their projects.

On the same time, Iohanna Nicenboim came as visiting tutor and was guest of Casa Jasmina. We asked Iohanna her experience as designer and as guest of Casa Jasmina, here the entire interview

• Hi Iohanna! You recently won the Internet of Things People’s Choice Award for the Best Design Fiction Project of 2015/16. Congratulations! Can you tell us about your background and what led you to even becoming interested in the field of IoT?

Hi! Thank you. My background is in Product Design and New Media, so somehow the IoT connects these two. I was always interested in technology, but sometimes found the ‘screen paradigm’ very cold and limited. Thus, researching about Ubiquitous Computing and the IoT was fascinating, as I could finally imagine interactions with technology being part of our everyday life, and especially embedded in the physical world of objects. However, I still think there is a lot of work to do for designers of the IoT: its social aspects are not well explored and there is a gap between user-centered and thing-centered design. Thus, trying to understand this technology’s challenges and possibilities, and especially how we would like to adopt and domesticate it, are my personal interests right now.

• Tell us more about your winning project Objects of Research. What were you hoping to achieve in creating these objects? In the end, did they meet your expectation?

Objects of Research is a critical design project about the IoT. It focuses on the question: ‘WHO is the OBJECT in the Internet of Things?’ With this question, I suggest that we, humans, might not be the customers or the users of the IoT anymore, but rather the objects. This idea is based on the current trends of quantification, as well as the current models of online services, in which we are the producers of data, which is used by companies and governments. Around this ideas, I explored the scenario in which artefacts in the house could not only collect data, but also use us as subjects (or objects?) of their research. Through four fictional devices, I examined the challenges and risks of adopting the current models of the online services, into our future houses. Thus, my goal was to trigger a critical reflection on what kind of Internet we would like to adopt in Things. I think it is important for designers to address the Internet of Things also critically, as that could help us identify and reflect on some of the challenges we might face in adopting this technology. Thus, my aim with this project was to problematize the IoT, and try to break with the current discourses which are extremely positive, preventing us from understanding its social implications.

• You came to Torino to visit with students from School of Machines, Making & Make-Believe. What incite did you share and which did you gain?

I know Rachel Uwa for some years and was following the School of Ma since it started. When she told me the premise for her next program in Turin, I thought it was a great opportunity to join. I felt very connected with the starting point for “Coming Soon” which proposed to explore how we could reflect the subtleties and complexities of our human nature in the devices we create. I especially liked that the program was about IoT, but with a focus on culture and ethics. I was also excited to meet the instructors, Sitraka Rakotoniaina and Andrew Friend, and enjoyed sharing a small part of the program with them. The group was really creative and open, and I loved the atmosphere that Rachel and Casa Jasmina provided. It was so much fun to hear about their process and ideas, it was truly inspiring for me!

• While here, you were hosted by Casa Jasmina. What was that experience like for you?

Living at Casa Jasmina was a very interesting experience for me as a designer, which I would call a “real design fiction” or a “What if? experience .” Since I work in the field of design fiction, I always create making-belive projects, in which I come up with an idea and through videos and images make it credible for others. But being at Casa Jasmina was like embedding myself into the fiction: Every light I turned on, every noise from the heating or move from the wind, made me think, what if things around were connected or alive? How would I like to interact with them? And especially, how would this change my relationship with the house? Additionally, I knew the house was not very technological, but I discovered that exactly that might be its great potential: leaving things open lets us imagine alternative interactions that are very different from the superficial promises of IoT commercials. Instead, the openness allowed me to think how would I like a connected home to be, which is much more important.

• How do you imagine the future of Casa Jasmina? As a designer what do you expect from the project?

I think the real challenge of the IoT is to go beyond connecting artifacts, and rather imagine which new kinds of objects could exist and which new relationships we could have with and through them. One of the most interesting aspects for me about the IoT is that it can radically impact on the way we perceive objects, our houses, and ourselves. Once our houses get connected to the internet, the idea of “home“ might change dramatically. So I think Casa Jasmina is a great way to explore how people might perceive “home” in the future and what could be the impact of this shift for the design of IoT. Personally, I think it is a great playground for designers, a place to imagine and explore questions in a very free way.

• At some point, you shared an idea for how the Casa Jasmina space could be divided which was quite interesting. What came of this idea in the end? You will come later, in the summer, for a residency in Casa Jasmina to develop this project. What do you expect from this experience?

Yes, the plan is to come back in the summer to work on an idea I had while I was staying at the house. The idea is based on my experience that there were spaces which seemed more private than others. Some places might like to share informations and some others might need to keep secrets.. as in every house. So my challenge is to reflect the privacy of spaces with design, finding an interesting design language. I want to explore Privacy not as a dichotomy, but as a more complex gradient of personal values. I would like to start this exploration on door-knobs, as I am really interested in the infrastructural elements of the house. I like the tension between the visibility and invisibility of the infrastructures in connected houses, and I think that by drawing attention to the physical infrastructures, people could be more aware of the invisible infrastructures of spaces we inhabit, such as networks.

• Could you tell to a designer and a normal guest the reason to come and visit Casa Jasmina?

Reasons are many, but among them: to meet the amazing team of Casa Jasmina, to enjoy a nice meal and relax in the bright and beautiful space they have, and to travel in time once you go out of the door: Turin is a magical city where time has stopped, and the future is coming soon 😉 What advice would you give to others thinking to visit Casa Jasmina to help them best utilize their time in the space? Personally, I think it’s good to be there and let the house talk to you. In the Fablab you can build everything, but I think it would be important to understand what are the needs and possibilities of that particular space. My recommendations are: Be ready to be surprised, and to challenge your assumptions of what a Smart Home should be – instead, you can imagine what kind of smart home you would like it to be. I think it would be good to do a short (research) visit and then come back and build your project!

• What are your upcoming plans? Any new IoT objects on the horizon or what’s next for you?

Right now I am developing some new ideas, which I will show in Milan in the Salone del Mobile as part of the Good Home project. I am also planning a workshop in Berlin around March at Art+Com Explore, and extremely excited about going back to Casa Jasmina in the summer for a residency.