David Chatting, Northumbria University

Abstract

In this talk I shall present a new layered model for designing computational research products, showing how prototypes can deliberately encounter and manipulate different paces of change in the world, to produce knowledge. These designs may function sustainably as inquiry-driven research products, probing durational phenomena, or as propositions seeking to integrate with, and survive in, a complex world over long or short periods. I shall discuss this through a variety of examples and an ongoing Research Through Design project, Resound, designed as an alternative techno-spiritual practice of remote chanting in a Buddhist community.

bio

David Chatting is an Innovation Fellow at Northumbria University in the UK. He is a designer and technologist, with a career spanning over 30 years in industry and academia. His is a technically, socially, and historically engaged Research Through Design practice, seeking to create knowledge through the reflective production of public design work – frequently exploring the impact of emerging technologies in everyday lives.

David has a PhD in Design from Goldsmiths, University of London (2023); an MA in Design Interactions from the Royal College of Art (2012); and a BSc in Computer Science from the University of Birmingham (2000). His recent work concerns the domestication of the Internet, proposing some alternative, practical ways to design technologies for the home. To these ends he takes some critical perspectives on current trends in the design of domestic technologies, and of Internet of Things products in particular.