news
  • ongoing
    exhibition

    MAK Design Lab at the Museum of applied Arts in Vienna. Within the permanent Design exhibition one can find a few of our projects like 'the idea of a tree', 'limited moths' or 'LeveL.

    MAK Design Lab

  • 15.September 2023 - 21. July 2024
    exhibition

    HEIMATEN. An exhibition and survey and an attempt to break with conventional takes on Heimat. the exhibition was shown at the Museum für Kunst und Gewerbe Hamburg (MK&G) in 2022. Our specially commissioned piece 'riparian cloud' is now also on show in Molfsee.

    Freilichtmuseum Molfsee

  • 15.3.2024 – 13.10.2024
    exhibition, new project

    "Water Pressure - Designing for the future" an exhibition of the MK&G Hamburg and Jane Withers Studio – looks at the water crisis from a global perspective. We were commissioned to come up with an installation celebrating water. The result "vital rain" is part of the exhibition and will stay permanently in the museums yard.
    more soon

    MKG Hamburg - Water Pressure

real image & finger blocks

jewellery responding to our behaviour with digital devices

  • year 2018

  • category Products & Furniture

  • commissioned by

    chp…? jewelry

  • for

    Exhibition ‘Device People’

Devices have taken over our lives. According to British research, the average smartphone user checks their phone 221 times a day. Thanks to our smartphones and mobile Internet, there is always an open window that overlooks an infinite world of communications, information and entertainment. As Jacob Weisberg suggested in a recent article in The New York Review of Books, we have all turned into ‘device people’ and our transformation into device people has happened with unprecedented suddenness. The first iPhones went on sale in June 2007 – less than 10 years ago – followed by the first Android-powered phones in the following year. Smartphones increased in market penetration faster than any other consumer technology in history. Today, not carrying a smartphone indicates eccentricity, social marginalization, or old age.

The omnipresent screen culture is responsible for a social transformation. There are numerous situations in which our devices take away our attention and a conversation is swapped for a glance down at a screen. The chat app is what the cigarette was in the last century: a symbolic consumption good that makes a significant contribution to the running of the economy. While the most profit flows to large companies, the consumer will have comfort and pleasure in return. But somewhere in the system are hidden costs that cannot be felt immediately. In the case of the cigarette, lungs are slowly destroyed. But what is the hidden cost of becoming device people? And how can a piece of jewelry respond to this transformation?

text by: chp…? jewelry

 

real image

real image is a mirror in the palm of our hands, the place that normally holds our smartphone — an attempt to remind us that we are part of the here and now and not only of our digital surrounding.

the mirrored surface encourages self-reflection by actually showing how often we 'check' our devices
image credit: Buro Belén - chp...? jewelry

real image in two colours, mimicking the display of the average smartphone
image credit: Buro Belén - chp...? jewelry

finger blocks

finger blocks invite us to stop using our devices – By introducing a new type of ornament, a fingertip cover, that combines functionality with decoration, the jewelry pieces help bringing the attention from the devices back to the ‘real world’. Wearing finger blocks also signalises your attention to the sourrounding

sketch of the model

blocking two most used fingertips
image credit: Buro Belén - chp...? jewelry

finger blocks worn on a necklace when they are not in use
image credit: Buro Belén - chp...? jewelry

finger blocks necklace
image credit: Buro Belén - chp...? jewelry

on the top the real image jewelry piece looks like a normal ring

  • material

    finger blocks

    silver 925
    3D printed

    real image

    stainless steel, titanium nitride coated glass/ black coated glass

  • dimensions

    finger blocks

    2 x 4 cm

    real image

    2 x 4 cm

  • team

    Katharina Mischer, Thomas Traxler, Elisa Polner, Claire Garcia-Webb

  • developed for

    ‘device people’ exhibition by chp…? jewelry at Alcova, Milan Design Week 2018