Redefining the future of tech
How can technology help introverts and extroverts better understand each other? How can Augmented Reality (AR) bring people closer together? What would it be like to design your clothes in Virtual Reality (VR)?Â
Read on to find out how 2019’s graduates across the RCA are developing groundbreaking ideas that challenge the status quo – from exploring VR environments as new domains for creativity, to making tools to better equip designers and artists for future innovation.
1. Liang Zou, MA Painting, Insight
In Insight, Liang Zou created seven VR rooms based on paintings he made before joining the RCA. This immersive environment destabilises our idea of what ‘painting’ can encompass. In order to create the work, Zou wrote his own code and painting programme, basing it on existing gaming technology. 2. Samuel Capps, MA Contemporary Art Practice, preCurs0rÂ
Samuel Capps’ preCurs0r is a hybrid sculpture/VR experience that illustrates the parallel between the natural world and cutting-edge technologies. Using Fredric Jameson’s analysis of how cultural trends can be mapped onto advances in technology, the work highlights the link between contemporary nuclear fusion and the preponderance of computer generated environments.3. Nico Conti, MA Ceramics & Glass, Of Lace and Porcelain
Subverting the traditional ideas of making, Nico uses technologically advanced modelling processes combined with the human manipulation of clay to produce ‘defects’ in his sculptures. To make the work, Conti formulated a porcelain-like material that contains particles fine enough to create the delicate 3D printed forms.4. Alexis Demetriades, MA Visual Communication, Artefacting
Artefacting investigates the supposedly sterile 3D-printed replicas of museum artefacts – and the errors introduced through this mode of conservation. By taking a 3D scan of a 4,000-year-old grain grinding stone, creating a physical copy through CNC (computer numerical control) milling and then repeating the entire process, Alexis has layered digital processes to create something completely new yet familiar.
5. Julian Tapales, MA Information Experience Design, NATURATA, NATURANS
NATURATA, NATURANS considers the binary between the analogue and the digital, asking whether the 3D representation of the artefact still retains its original power. Centreing a bulul – a carved wooden figure whose purpose is to receive the negative energies channeled during rituals to protect the rice crop – Julian’s work uses a 3D scanner and neural net trained on images of religion and spirituality to render a virtual bulul. 6. Yanbin Cao, MA Animation, The Soloist
Yanbin’s The Soloist is part virtual reality film, part game, based on research into introversion and extroversion. The project allows users to experience scenarios in an immersive way, with participants having to make decisions to gain points, which Yanbin hopes will enable people to better understand the mindset of introverts in social situations.Â7. Ryo Tada, MA Innovation Design Engineering, Fulu
Ryo Tada’s Fulu is a new way for interacting with augmented reality interfaces that consists of a nail-mounted device. The item allows wearers to experience texture in the virtual world, while the finger pad ensures that the physical world is still accessible, a system Tada names ‘Augmented Touch’. 8. Ciaran Moore, MA Textiles, B34
Combining environmentally friendly fashion with virtual reality, Ciaran Moore’s B34 allows consumers to customise their fashion choices. Working with producers SOPHIE and Sega Bodega to create soundscapes, he created virtual textures and spaces to immerse the viewer in a multi-sensory environment. 9. Arya (Ximran) Huang, MA Design Products, Virtual Hiking
Virtual Hiking is designed to combat motion sickness, a common occurrence in virtual reality experiences. Ayra (Ximran) Huang typifies this as the ‘confusion you feel when your vision tells your brain that you are moving, but all the other parts of the body tell your brain that you are still’, with the work taking the form of a walking stick that anchors the user.Â