‘Virtual Realities & the Future of Interaction Design’

The cavemen paintings are one of the earliest relicts of the use of virtual reality for entertainment and didactical purposes.

Since then we have seen a tremendous progress in technologies of making images recordable, processable und computable. We now have personal computers, creating routinely hundreds of millions of pixels per second, always at our service to bring any imaginable image to our eyes. Similarly acoustic waves in the air can be controlled with utmost precision and our ears are now used to hear digitally recorded, processed and computed audio signals in any possible circumstance. Digital design tools can be used to create sophisticated audiovisual experiences and we can completely immerse ourselves in different realities.

But there is a surprising number of human senses, which are still locked out from digital design. Current experiments with olfaction and proprioception may feel like early medieval experiments with perspective or the crude voice synthesis experiments of the 1950ties. But opening up these senses to digital design tools will (again) completely change the way how we feel about technology.

We will discuss with transdisciplinary makers giving perspectives on architecture and design, olfactorics, proprioceptics and our construction of form and reality.

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Mirko Becker

Mirco Becker is Guest Professor for Architecture and Performative Design (APD) at the Städelschule Architecture Class (SAC), Frankfurt.

Mark Farid

The conceptual artist Mark Farid examines the ethics of performing in social situations to help understand the administrated identity of the individual.

Pedro Lopes

As a dedicated musician and turntabelist Pedro Lopes knows a lot about getting into a flow with intuitive interfaces.

Mark Lukas

The sense of smell is one of the few human senses, which still resist digitalisation. Scents are still magical and difficult to grasp.