After The Bit Rush

Submitted by Max Reyner on Thu, 03 Nov 2011 at 17:59

It’s pretty clear we’re in the middle of a digital age. We communicate with each other using sophisticated digital devices, and even with objects through QR codes and NFC technology. But what’s next? What happens in the post-digital era?

A new exhibition called After the Bit Rush: Design in the Post-digital Age is exploring what this landscape might look like. The show at the MU gallery in Eindhoven, The Netherlands features projects that predict scenarios that might happen in the near future.

Belgian design group Unfold Studio has shown KIOSK, which explores how digital fabricators could be so omnipresent that they even appear on street corners. Dutch designer Tim Knapen has created an interactive installation that combines a video game with a zoetrope (an apparatus that creates an illusion of movement by rapidly replacing still images one after the other). Visitors are invited to add their own drawings, by which they can influence the structure of the game. And ex-RCA graduate Markus Kayserhas shown his Sun-Cutter project, a mechanical device that uses sintering to heat sand and turn it into 3D glass forms.

The show gives us a glimpse into the sort of manufacturing processes and means of digital interaction that might exist in the near future. And we just hope it isn’t too far away.

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