Part of the Project
There are two gut-wrenching moments in today's digital age: The moment your data is stolen or hacked, and the moment your smartphone breaks completely. Designer Noud Sleumer's project (Im)material Telephone investigates what to do post either tragedy.
First, he looked at the physical object. Sleumer found that a smartphone contains 42 precious materials that could be upcycled and reused. Secondly, he looked at the data. How could his project give people peace of mind in an age of data misuse? The answer he found was that he would have to destroy the data and dismantle the smartphone at the same time. To do it, he created a machine to solve both problems.
“The machine both dramatises and guarantees the destruction of the data storage, making personal information inaccessible, while capturing the moment in which the smartphone’s inner materials are revealed,” explains Sleumer.
“The machine activates new possibilities for the circulation and reuse of materials, while preventing the user’s private history from disseminating into the public sphere.”
As an added bonus, the machine also takes a picture of the smartphone as it gets destroyed, right before its new phase of life as separated materials.
“This project takes the seemingly catastrophic moment in which the smartphone breaks as an opportunity to redefine the value of the expired object,” he explains.
His talk is part of the 2018 antenna conference, which was held during Dutch Design Week in collaboration with Design Indaba. Sleumer joined 19 other young designers who are using design to solve the problems of the future.
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