Microwave Dreams
as the modern campfire
Sit down around the fire and speculate about the present and the future.
Master Diploma
Issue
Microwave Dreams is the reinterpretation of the microwave oven in a way that breaks with the conventional rationality and technologically dominated kitchen and personal space. The object emphasises that beyond efficiency and cold rationalism, the more emotional and playful nature of the kitchen space is essential when we specualte about the present and future.
With my masterwork my goal was to contribute in a way to a more critical thinking in a space where everyone experiments and creates, sometimes in an irrational way. I studied the affordances of electronic objects and how they shape our daily lives for better or worse.
Microwave
The microwave oven, which is albeit almost a 60 years old technology, very little has been changed about its semiology and user interface. To this day it uses a controversial technology, that isn’t likely to change in the near future. Emergent technologies in the field seems to use the same semiology as before, which implies, that although one of the main objectives of the designer is to bring closer new technologies to the user, there is no commitment to change the archetype of the microwave oven.
The contemporary view emphasizes that it is better to hide and electronic artefact and the way how it's functions (how it's uses electricity and so on). In contrast to this the onject is not kept in the shade, but instead it functions as a the central artefact of the home. I rtied to ordain the creative and spiritual nature of the kitchen and cooking, using a technology which goal is to cut down the amount of time we spend there. The object dominates the future kitchen space just like in the past when people gathered around the fire to share stories and their dreams about the present and the future.
RF Solid State
The object uses an emergent technology called RF solid state microwave. It is essential how the user places the food under (or inside) the oven so the artefacts functions as a lid. The interaction between the user and the microwave is a two-way cooking process. The user places the food on top of the plate (or table) in a manner that is required for the given food item. Various shapes and sizes affects the way in which the oven recognizes it’s content.
The actor pulls down the object on to the plate with the help of a crane system. The oven uses a conceptual algorithmic system that learns patterns as data. In this way the user teaches the machine with cooking. The microwave oven cooks the food after the user sets the time.
It is a conceptualized process so the cooking function with the help of an algorithm. During the cooking the object signals what is happening inside the cavity (the properties of the microwave).
Questions that motivated my work
Is is preferable, that, with the use of IoT devices the human control is starting to lose its value?
In a world where the intimate home and the workspace merge in to one another, objects are following the same logic as before?
Is it good that the contemporary designers countionously pushing the user into the digital space?
What other future scenarios are possible?
