Object Mediated Interaction
Guorong Luo
Hybrid Techno-Dextrous Experience Designer & Creative Technologist. Dialectical thinker and fantastic experimentalist with a prototyping mindset that “sketches” in physical and digital to learn by doing and making.
Guorong Luo has a great passion for combining emerging technologies and more-than-human-centered design methodology to create innovative design with a special focus on interactivity. He conducts investigations in designing for, with and by machine intelligence. His curiosity and abundant working experience across disciplines help him build strong skill sets in many areas such as VR/AR, AI and Machine Learning.
Previous Degree
B.F.A in Product Design, Parsons School of Design, 2017-2017(Exchange);
B.E in Industrial Design, Tongji University, 2014-2018
Exhibitions
Trajectories III, Watermans Arts Centre, London, 2020 - Postponed(COVID-19);
Milan Design Week 2020, Ventura Future, Milan, 2020 - Cancelled(COVID-19)；
Sense-ability, Royal College of Art, London, 2018
Sponsors
OPPO
I have a healthy obsession with how people interact with technology and my concepts always bring a playful and yet critical view on this aspect. I learn and design by doing and making with a prototyping mindset that “sketches” in hardware and software and I'm comfortable with ambiguity and fuzzy, exploratory project briefs. Besides actively exploring the boundaries of prototyping new interactions, I endeavour to think in new ways about how people engage with future technology and the world around them.
My work focuses on building experiential versions of the future, acting as design probes that help us articulate how we want to interact with future smart objects. My project Domesticated Domesticator represented my thoughts on the future of AI embedded objects, shifting from human-centric to think from the perspective of an object. It turns around the practice of humans domesticating themselves through objects towards how objects can domesticate humans of their own accord. By doing this project, I trigger a critical reflection on the AI physical object design discourse and what this means in terms of the types of new domestication behaviours that can emerge, who is responsible for them and the ethical positions of designers who initiate these innovations.
Video Still 01 — augur arrives and attracts users to subscribe to auto-upgrade service trial
Video Still 02 — augur begins to observe the environment and find patterns that seek user attentions
Video Still 03 — Upgrade parts arrived and installed by user.augur starts to attract user attentions
Evolution Process — Evolved from a basic unit to highly personalized smart objects with different functions and shapes
AI Design CMF Diagram — Demonstrate how augur AI designs CMF
Decision Diagram — Demonstrate how augur AI makes upgrade decisions within one upgrade cycle
While products so far have been designed and manufactured to serve a predefined use, we can now imagine a present and near-future world where smart objects as yet not finished entities that can evolve their behaviours by observing, reading and interpreting our habits.
My project is a fictional/experimental service and speculation, envisioning an unfinished smart object that actively upgrades itself to domesticate its user in order to grab the right to consume from the user and survive in the market. This project investigates the space where AI and evolving physical forms meet in challenging our ideas of how future products could domesticate the domesticator and endeavoured to portray around hopes and fears of AI embedded products, illustrating the enriched relationship possibilities for a new tomorrow.
AR Poster 01 — upon scanning, exposes two sides of the dialogue
AR Poster 02 — upon scanning, exposes two sides of the dialogue
Installation 01 — An uncomfortable set-up that resonates from the architecture of factory farming houses
Installation 02 — An uncomfortable set-up that resonates from the architecture of factory farming houses
Visual Guide Map
VR Headset and Heartbeat Sensor
Video Still — Cattle move through the Temple Grandin’s Serpentine Ramp
The concept of “humane” in animal slaughtering, and more generally, the idea that humans can ethically exploit animals have led to an unsolvable debate about our ethical/unethical interaction with animals. Humane is a conundrum. It directs you to a debate where violence is one half of the argument and an inevitable one.
‘In order for a body to occupy the same spatial coordinates as a wall - a requirement if this body wants to cross the wall – a shock is detrimental to both assemblages; this shock is what we call violence. Although violence is reciprocal, the degree of violence is not symmetrical. The consequence of such an asymmetrical spread of power is the ability for architecture to organise bodies in space’. (Weaponized Architecture: The Impossibility of Innocence- Léopold Lambert)
Our floor-based installation presents an installation, an uncomfortable set-up that resonates from the architecture of factory farming houses a VR headset with a sensory element that mimics the fluctuating heart rate of cattle moving through Temple Grandin’s Serpentine Ramp accompanied by a ‘visual guide map’. This setup allows the viewer to transport to the site whilst experiencing the drastic change in the heartbeat paired with visual cues that suggest the state of factory farming today.
By doing so, we initiate a dialogue about the politics of weaponizing spaces - spaces designed for death and violence - and the questionable humanness of the design of such places.
Size:
1.2 x 0.6 x 1.8m , 1:30 minute VR experience VideoOPPO
Website:
https://www.oppo.com/en/When The Place Shuts Down: Clara Gaggero Westaway
When The Place Shuts Down: RCA X OPPO