In this project called “the bubbles of radio” – created at AHO in a research-driven course called Tangible interactions – Ingeborg Marie Dehs Thomas uses critical, visual design as a way of exploring the perception of many kinds of electromagnetic fields. The project answered the question: “How can we use the increasingly radio-saturated landscape for creative or functional purposes?”

Inspired by Hertzian Tales by Dunne and Raby as well as other projects including Cell Phone Disco, Ingeborg explored many critical design products or services that would engage with the landscape of radio.
Using inspiration from richly illustrated books on botany, zoology and natural history, she arrived at the concept of an encyclopeadia of radio waves that contains a selection of fictional radio ‘species’. Armed with a well researched and advanced knowledge of the use, application and technicalities of each radio technology she created fictional visualisations of the ways in which radio waves inhabit space. These are creative expressions based as much on personal creativity as on technical or scientific data like range and signal strength. Six contemporary radio technologies are visualised: Bluetooth, DMB, GSM, RFID, Wifi and Zigbee.

These “fictional radio spaces” are not intended to be technically accurate or to offer actionable information. Instead they provide a playful cue to reflect & consider radio as something tangible & physical to be experienced by alternative senses, not just through a screen.

Thanks to: information aesthetics.