Updatable Objects:
Exploring how advanced technologies can enable a new sense of intelligence in everyday things
In partnership with Matteo Loglio and Simone Rebaudengo of oio, we envisioned a speculative application that could enable a new sense of intelligence in everyday things. Updatable Objects gives your chair, table, or bed an awareness of when it’s not being used, when it’s broken, and ultimately, the agency to voice how it can remain relevant in your home, or when your needs change.
With this exhibition, we asked oio to extend this digital experiment to create physical prototypes, so we can better imagine how the technology — and the resulting furniture — might manifest in the future.
About the exhibition
What if furniture had a voice? Rather than sitting quietly in the corner, your furniture could let you know when it has tired legs, needs mending, or simply feels like it’s not being used — and request an update.
Updatables is a playful technology that enables the everyday objects in your home to propose how they could be improved or evolved to stay relevant and extend their life. Using an evolutionary algorithm, the application iteratively adds and swaps existing IKEA parts to create new combinations across multiple generations.
For this exhibition, shown at SPACE10’s Mexico City pop-up in April 2022, oio collaborated with designer Christian Vivanco to create three fictional furniture prototypes that evolve IKEA’s Fanbyn chair. Each resulting Updatable is unique — with its own name, story, and family tree.
These imaginative prototypes prompt us to think about circularity and reconnection, asking: if you once loved this object enough to welcome it into your life, how can we rekindle the relationship?
By guiding us to understand the ways we can extend the life of our furniture, Updatables encourages us to rediscover relevance and joy in possibly forgotten objects.
Creative brief, concept, comms strategy, and partnership selection: Georgina McDonald
Creative technologists and design: Matteo Loglio and Simone Rebaudengo of oio
Prototype design and production: Christian Vivanco
Creative communications and copywriting: Bakken and Bæck