One Object: Nomadic Inspiration (OO:NI) is an interactive installation that taps into, collects, and conjures the worlds of inspiration that power design. Gleaned from design’s historical archive, each week, one object that speaks to the theme of the industrial design bachelor course Understanding Design is exhibited.
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In the revolving door at the entrance of Industrial Design Engineering faculty, we had an exhibition of the theme for that week.
In May 2024 we created another trial exhibition near the entrance. This Minimum Viable Product, consisted of standard and available display materials, each week over 4 weeks, it displayed a different objects and associations could be added by visitors on their smartphones, using QR-codes on a poster as an invitation. The associations of visitor input were visualised using Generative AI on the large screen behind the exhibited object.
The lessons from these experiments made clear that the new location, questions and Generative AI visuals on the display worked, but that QR-codes were too big a threshold for visitors to add their own associations. We also learned the importance of instant feedback, being able to visualize the associations instantly.
The concept is inspired by the DIY Nomadic furniture books from the early 1970s. The exhibition started taking shape from a scale model and ended in a life size design.
The design is modular, which makes it perfect to adapt to showcase different sized objects and easy to disassemble for moving and to store when not in use (nomadic).
After several iterations, the current incarnation of this exhibition is called One Object: Nomadic Inspiration (OO:NI). It displays one object in an exhibition cube, with Generative AI powered visual associations projected on the background. Visitors can use the tablet integrated into the exhibition to interact with and add associations in an expressive interface, developed by Studio Random.
In OO:NI visitors share their associations with the exhibited object which are then visualized. Seeing the object displayed in the context of these associations, visitors can view and build on the associations of others with their own associations. The designed world is, after all, a remix of ideas that we can recombine and transform. The goal of making tacit associations explicit is to empower students to explore, appreciate and discuss design’s raw material: sources of inspiration.
Showcase of the input results and their corresponding visuals that were displayed on the screen inside the cube. Four out of the nine weekly topics are shown and supported by an end of quarter exhibition.
