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OK to Technology

An interactive art installation that is a colourful speculation on the materiality of technology.

Technology has always materialised as objects: tools, devices, gadgets. More and more, its materiality, like that of these objects, is defined by minimal forms, hardened plastics, cold screens and shiny metallics. Its methods have become increasingly inscrutable, icily analytical and callously calculative. Its manner seems intrusive, apathetic and simulated.

From servers to smartphones to Fitbit, the Computer, the ultimate technological object, has formed a world where space and object stand apart; where communication is minimal; where experience exists distinct from emotion. We are caught in the sharp glow of the screen and all we do is stare, point, touch or swipe.

“OK COMPUTER is our speculation on the materiality, method and manner of technology in a cyber-physical future of blurred, tenuous, soft edges between the physical, digital and human. It is a space where light, sound and movement communicate more than object, form, image and text. The title is taken from Radiohead’s 1997 album “OK Computer”, itself derived from Douglas Adam’s 1978 BBC radio series The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, in which the character Zaphod Beeblebrox says, “Ok computer, I want full manual control now”,” say the architect duo, Vaibhav Dimri and Madhav Raman of Anagram Architects, who have conceived this interactive installation.

Anagram Architects is an architectural design practice established by Vaibhav Dimri and Madhav Raman in New Delhi. The partners are graduate architects from the School of Planning and Architecture, New Delhi. The firm’s practice is diverse and encompasses public infrastructure planning, urban design, architecture, scenography, broadcast design, furniture design and interior design.

“Through our work we attempt to enrich elemental modernity with intensive research into traditional as well as non-conventional practices, evolving culturally relevant, contextually responsive and resource efficient design solutions,” says the architects.

OK COMPUTER is an interactive installation made of polyurethane foam and embedded infrared and light emitters and detectors that senses the motion of its engager and modulates music in response. In effect. it is a device to dance with and to dance to. Conceived by Anagram Architects as a collaboration with Experiential Design Laboratory (XDLab India).