From a game where players control a ball using only the power of thought, to hearing aids that look like jewellery and clothes that monitor your body during exercise, a new exhibition at Discovery Museum in Newcastle will showcase a brave new world of incredible technology. Our Cyborg Future? is both a celebration and a wake-up call. Running from Friday 10th August until 27th October, it will challenge visitors with a vision of the shrinking divide between humans and the technology that we use, and asks: is this a future we want?
Exhibits include the most cutting-edge technology in prosthetic limbs, a t-shirt with the technology to give us a ‘hug,’ and a prototype designer dress created by Hussein Chalayan that moves and changes shape while being worn.
Several pieces allow visitors to interact with and experience the new technology for themselves. One such exhibit is a machine that can read brain waves, allowing the user to spell words out on a computer using only their mind.
Elsewhere in the exhibition, visitors will find the BEAR (Battlefield Extraction-Assist Robot), made by Vecna Robotics. For some time, modern robotic designers have been exploring how robots could be used in hazardous environments such as under enemy fire, a nuclear reactor core, a toxic chemical spill, or inside a structurally compromised building after an earthquake. The BEAR is equally capable of a variety of lifting, transporting and other logistics tasks as well as going into a wide range of disaster areas, natural or man-made, searching for and rescuing casualties. It is very agile and can balance well. It also has a high-strength upper body in humanoid form to carry out victims. The BEAR is set to be one of the most striking and popular exhibits at Our Cyborg Future?.
The exhibition will also take in venues outside the Discovery Museum and exhibits will appear in the Centre for Life and Life Square. A highlight will be the European premiere, on 9th October, of an exhibit called “Walking Head” by renowned Australian base performance artist Stelarc.
Sure to fascinate adults and children alike, Our Cyborg Future? demonstrates how clever design is allowing 21st Century technological innovations to fundamentally impact the way that we all live. The exhibition is part of Dott 07 (Designs of the time 2007) a national event hosted by North East England. Discovery Museum is open from 10am to 5pm Monday to Saturday and from 2pm to 5pm on Sundays. Admission is free.
A partnership between the Design Council and regional development agency One NorthEast, Dott 07 is a year of community projects, events and exhibitions that explore what life in a sustainable region could be like and how design can help us get there. Our Cyborg Future? forms part of North East England’s world-class festivals and events programme and showcases how amazing developments in technology could interact with and affect us all on a daily basis, but insists: we should be involved in deciding what gets made. Full details can be found at www.dott07.com.
For more information contact Saskia Sissons of on 020 7420 5248 or Saskia.sissions@designcouncil.org.uk
1. Dott 07 (Designs of the time 2007) is a year of community projects based in North East England that explore what life in a sustainable region could be like - and how design can help us get there.
2. Dott 07 is a partnership between the Design Council and One NorthEast.
3. Dott 07 is the first biennial in a 10-year ‘Designs of the time’ programme of design innovation, developed by the Design Council, and taking place every two years in a different region or nation across the UK.
4. Dott 07 asks the question ‘Who Designs Your Life?’ and looks at six key themes: health and wellbeing, food and nutrition, school and community, energy and environment, sustainable tourism, and mobility and access.
5. Dott 07 is ‘user centred’ – it enables communities and individuals in the region to collaborate with designers in realistic situations.
6. Dott 07 projects address real questions and issues, using design principles to find solutions.
7. Dott 07 is being led by programme director John Thackara, renowned internationally for his work as director of design futures network Doors Of Perception, which encourages designers, technology experts and grass roots innovators to work together in new ways.
8. Executive producer is Robert O’Dowd, who has extensive experience in business and creative development. He was a founding director of Classic FM and is now chief executive of Real Health (UK) Ltd and 180 Solutions (UK) Ltd.
9. Dott 07 forms part of North East England’s world class programme of events and festivals for 2007.
10. The Design Council is the UK’s national strategic body for design. It aims to strengthen and support the economy and society by demonstrating and promoting the role of design in making business and public services more effective.
11. Dott is one of two national programmes of social and economic change driven by the Design Council. Designing Demand, its national business support programme, rolls out in the region later in the year.
12. One NorthEast is the Regional Development Agency covering North East England. It was set up in 1999 to transform the area through ‘sustainable economic development’ and to create jobs, prosperity and a better quality of life for residents. It covers the region comprising County Durham, Northumberland, Tees Valley and Tyne and Wear.
13. Our Cyborg Future? is curated/produced by Andrew Chetty and co-curated by Sabine Seymour.
14. Discovery Museum contact details for visitors:
Discovery Museum, Blandford Square, Newcastle
Tel: 0191 232 6789
www.twmuseums.org.uk/discovery