Finding Byaduk: Thinking objects as prototypes of affective telepresence with digital data

The Finding Byaduk creative residency is an experimental project, aimed at exploring speculations around the phenomenology of digital data representations of a landscape, and the design of interfaces and embodied expressions. Part of this process also adapts ethnographic methodologies in articulating and capturing visual descriptions of the site. The creative brief is developed as a thought experiment with ‘affective telepresence’ – finding means to remotely convey the qualities of a place using environmental sensors and exploring poetic roles that digital connected technologies might play through the design of embodied expressions and/or interactions. The final unpacking of an exemplar artefact serves to document the phenomenological nuances and development journey of this project, and in so doing, contribute discourse towards speculative design practices and interrelated methodologies in creative practice. The following themes scaffold the thinking and development of the project: critical and speculative design, data telepresence, and the design of ambient interactions. This paper will present the project’s journey through these lenses.