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Reading rates up to 18 words per seconds can be achieved
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Video still: Will smart drug medication become a normality?
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Video still: How will future generations deal with mental decay?
All content © 2011 Royal College of Art
Site: Loh & Fiedler
Thanks to: T.Lynch, S.Thiel, D. Foster-Smith
Does information technology „rewire“ our brains?
Being born in the early eighties, my generation can be seen as a linking piece between the analog past and our digital present. We inhabit both eras, and recognise in transition what we have gained and lost.
By contrast, the generation being considered as "Digital Natives", those currently growing up in a completely networked world, do not remember a time before constant cognitive augmentation was common and social interaction was mostly virtual.
What consequences will this increasing cognitive symbioses between humans and digital systems have? The devices and films proposed in these projects explore how information technology not only provides possibilities and knowledge, but also carries a psychoactive effect that leads to unforeseen changes in human interactions and self-conceptions.
In the following three objects are briefly presented: DROMOLUX, OPTOCOUPLER and INTROSPECTRE. They have been realised as functional prototypes and been illustrated in short video scenarios.
If you became aware of your increasing dementia, what would you do? In a society predicated on the transfer and consumption of information, the wish for never-ending cognitive function will replace the desire for endless healthiness and beauty.
The „dromolux“ is a speed-reading trainer that flashes words at an increasing pace using a strobe light and very short exposure. Used together with appropriate medication it could help people to fight cognitive deterioration, or increase their abilities to never before seen levels.
This object is designed for a world in which the global processing of information has grown enormously, coupled with brain enhancement drugs becoming morally accepted, effective and safe. It visualises a form of perception that is incomprehensible for people today, but provides a possible glimpse into a future information society.
