Parallel Universes
British Museum x Future Makers
London, UK
2017
Role:
Researcher-in-residence
Methods:
Speculative design
Social practice art
Critical making
British Museum x Future Makers
London, UK
2017
Role:
Researcher-in-residence
Methods:
Speculative design
Social practice art
Critical making
"The black hole would have to be large, and if it was rotating, it might have a passage to another, parallel universe..." - Steven Hawking
This speculative design intervention which I designed for the British Museum Future Makers programme took the form of a free public workshop series, which invited young people and their families to engage with the Korean Pottery exhibit through hands-on creative approaches combining speculative design approaches and new digital technologies. Participants were asked to explore what it might feel like to visit the museum as a complete outsider - an alien coming from one of the seven planets that orbit the Trappist-1. The families entered the Korean Pottery Collection as their alien selves, beholding Earth-made pottery artefacts for the first time and recording these encounters on a variety of digital tools. They took these findings back to the Samsung Digital Discovery Centre, and used them to rebuild artefacts from the exhibit as reinterpreted by alien cultures, using clay, craft materials, collaging, glitching apps and other materials and methods. They then worked together to create their own multimedia art exhibit in a Trappist-1 style, working with projectors, cameras and other digital storytelling tools to display parallel universe creations co-created by all.
This speculative design intervention which I designed for the British Museum Future Makers programme took the form of a free public workshop series, which invited young people and their families to engage with the Korean Pottery exhibit through hands-on creative approaches combining speculative design approaches and new digital technologies. Participants were asked to explore what it might feel like to visit the museum as a complete outsider - an alien coming from one of the seven planets that orbit the Trappist-1. The families entered the Korean Pottery Collection as their alien selves, beholding Earth-made pottery artefacts for the first time and recording these encounters on a variety of digital tools. They took these findings back to the Samsung Digital Discovery Centre, and used them to rebuild artefacts from the exhibit as reinterpreted by alien cultures, using clay, craft materials, collaging, glitching apps and other materials and methods. They then worked together to create their own multimedia art exhibit in a Trappist-1 style, working with projectors, cameras and other digital storytelling tools to display parallel universe creations co-created by all.
