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 fitbits, the computer, the ultimate technological object, has formed a world where space and object stands 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.”
OK COMPUTER is conceived by Anagram Architects as a collaboration with Experiential Design Lab (XDLab India).
Read More
