Living Kitchen
The Future of Nanotechnologies
The idea behind the Living Kitchen project was to imagine and question the future of our everyday objects throughout tomorrow's technologies. It is a fascinating and perturbing insight in the same time.
As digital information is flowing more and more into the real world, the idea of a programmable matter came to my mind. If we look at today’s surroundings, we notice that it is populated with physical devices containing digital information. Taking the example of a Smartphone, it is composed of a physical, fixed object into which runs a changing flow of information. The physical is static, the digital is dynamic.
Now let’s imagine a world where physical matter would gain digital abilities - meaning one could change the shape of any object as one would change the contents of a Smartphone. This would revolutionize our relationship with objects. An object would no longer induce a function by the way it looks. The user himself would define the functions of an object, the user becomes creator.
Such a technology is currently being researched by Intel and the Carnegie Mellon University under the name of Claytronics. It is in fact a matter made out of a multitude of small intelligent robots, able to stick and communicate to each other. This would create a shape-shifting, programmable matter, able to transform into whatever shape desired. Today, the robots or catoms forming the matter have more or less the size of an egg. They would need to shrink in size to form a smooth matter. It might take 20, 50 or 100 years but what is sure is that the speed with which computers will lose in size through the advances of nanotechnology is extraordinary.
Through the Living Kitchen project I tried to explore how people would interact within this form follows flow environment. The matter being reactive to exterior stimuli people would just have to touch the walls to make faucets, sinks or cutting-boards appear. The volumes could be stretched, twisted and bend by the user to perfectly fit his needs. Also new shapes could be invented by drawing their silhouettes on the surfaces. These could be saved onto the system and be summoned back again. You could also download shapes from your neighbor’s kitchen or buy them on specialized shape-stores. The possibilities are endless...
Living Kitchen is a prospective scenario and aims to create debate around the use of nanotechnology in future design and architecture.
