| Meaning and narrative: I took this week’s Softness topic in the direction of ‘meaningful’… meaningful objects, memory, sentimentality, history. It seems to me that we are heading toward a tricky situation with technology and the things that fill our lives. More and more of the objects that we live with are plastic and temporary. Computer and phones, the two things we probably interact with the most, are thrown away every couple years… and theres no way to make them really special-not like a pair of boots or or hardwood floor. We are loosing the ability to imprint ourselves in the objects we own… no history. Soon will be gone the days of the heirloom dresser, and the old cracky photo album from your grandma. Because technology is going to be put in everything, and technology changes, we are going to have to replace everything we own every couple years. I know that sounds hyperbolic, but it may be true… even the house, the once stable fixture in our lives, is fast becoming more fragile and stuffed with soon-to-be outdated technology.We need to start to deal with this problem. We need to start making digital heirlooms… something to encapsulate meaning. I starting thinking about the objects in my life that are meaningful to me: old leather boots, jewelry, photos, memorabilia, etc; and discovered that I don’t really care about the digital interfaces in my life. I care about the digital files, because they embody memories, but not the hardware. I would, in an instant, take a new computer if all my files and settings came with it… and I think thats a shame. We should care about the things in our lives… love them and their uniqueness.So, I decided to look at the cell phone. It is a good candidate to come up with some solutions for because its small, relatively simple, and is with you all the time. I made a list of the qualities of the things I care about (boots / wallet and jewelry: see presentation link), and a list of my cell phone’s qualities, then compared them. This is what I found: I think the reason I can’t relate to my phone is that I have to give it away every few years, and its made out of materials that wear very poorly. So, I decided to propose a few design changes: 1) Made the hardware modular, extendable, upgradeable. 2) (the more radical one)Make it out of materials you can imprint yourself in: leather and wood. The result is a little wood/leather/screen box. The words I hear people use when they hold it are like: “executive” “nice” “ooooo” “pretty”… no bad stuff… only good. I think people are missing these materials in their lives. Organic and human. It just makes sense.I know some companies are starting to make electronics with wood cases and such… but I don’t think thats enough. We need to change the paradigm of consumer electronics from “buy lots of cheap” to “buy few really good,” to make our devices more meaningful. And that will require a more upgradeable hardware. I hope we get there.Link:
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I love this. There is no reason why we should be deprived of having precious handmade functional items like this. I can only imagine what better shape my phone would be in if it were special to me as an object in itself, not just some replaceable hunk of cheap plastic. This phone runs down a slim line between ‘manufactured’ and ‘crafted’ that I’m sure we’ll see more of in the near future.
Way cool work.
Awesome craftsmanship too…