EYE D
Anticipating a near-future speculative software platform that enables users to review, monetize, and purge their own data, captured through the lens of a mixed reality headset.
Speculative Design ▲ 11.2022 – 12.2023
An effort to visualize the Future of Privacy began with an approach based on leveraging computer vision to identify surveillance mechanisms and obstructing them through novel impediments, like light, vapor, and reflection. These iterations revealed an uncomfortable understanding that maintaining personal privacy in an age of video doorbells cameras, virtual assistants, and biometric wearables was impossible; to achieve privacy in the digital age we needed to get inside of the system.
BACKGROUND
In anticipation of widespread adoption of head-mounted wearables in the near future, we focused on how we could retain the value of individual privacy when those around you might be capturing digital memories of your interactions every time they look in your direction. How do we retain control of our action, identity, and memory data when the human gaze and the gaze of surveillance become one?
REFRAMING SOLUTIONS
The final manifestation of the project consisted of two key components; (1) a video user guide introducing the system to a prospective user and (2) a functional hardware/software demo of an AR headset. The narrative assets enabled users to conceptualize system use cases while the functional headset demo assisted users in understanding the proximity of this impending future.
VISUALIZING DATA
Kabeer Andrabi, YY Yao, Zixun Huang, Yue Wu were collaborating designers and engineers on this project.