Menstruation Machine by Hiromi Ozaki
Interaction design and designing interactions... are they the same concept? Anthony Dunne, partner at Dunne and Raby and professor at Royal College of Arts in London, gave a keynote at Interaction12 that began this discussion for the attendees. In Dunne's talk titled "What if...Crafting Design Speculation," he asks designers to use imagination to think about what kind of futures we want—opening up the problem space. What if "we shift from how the world is to designing for how the world could be?" What if...we designed for alternate realities or fictional scenarios?
Dunne shared student projects to give the attendees an idea of these possibilities. One of the projects he discussed was "Menstruation Machine" by Hiromi Ozaki. He introduced this project by explaining that Ozaki didn't design for an alternate reality, instead she chose to design for three fictional personas. Two personas that she designed for were Sushiborg Yukari and Crowbot Jenny, and she assigned each with their own stylistic clothing, environment and accessories. In addition to creating and designing for these personas, Ozaki created video content of these personas interacting in their environment with the objects that were designed for them.
Crowbot Jenny, by Hiromi Ozaki
Sushiborg Yukari, by Hiromi Ozaki