Dilate, 2018

Role: Creative Director, Producer, Fabricator, Graphic Designer

Throughout history technology has been viewed as an extension of ourselves and a medium to project identity and meaning into a nameless world. But as philosopher Marshall McLuhan has stated, “We shape our tools and thereafter our tools shape us.” (McLuhan, 2001.)
Put simply the role of creating, using, altering and finally discarding technologies in turn shapes individuals, societies and cultures.

In the twenty first century, our tools are far more complex than we could have ever imagined. We have watches that can record our steps, computers that archive every email we have sent, and even toasters that convey human emotions. With the advent of practices and research into synthetic biology and artificial intelligence, our species is no longer creating tools that are inanimate and static objects.
Instead we are creating with what could be described as lifeforms.

Dilate seeks to answer the question, “What forms of symbiosis will humanity develop with technology in the future?”
This question was answered through research, ideation, prototyping and finally the development of a speculative design in the form of a wearable device.
This device was created to provide the public a space in which they can explore their own emotional and intellectual response to symbiotic technology.