TEND helps us think of objects not just as instruments for our use, but also as things that are effectively linked to us and that need care. Think of objects as beautiful and useful, like the trees in your garden; conceive of objects as things that perform services, which endure, and have lives of their own. We cannot converse with them, but we can interact in infinitely various ways. Objects are our kin.
The more seamlessly integrated objects are, the less 'designed' they seem and therefor the less noticeable they become. TEND is a product that seeks to literalize this disjunction by turning the experience of an inanimate object into that of a living organism. I am disrupting the interface between humans and ubiquitous objects in order to emphasize the value of mundane things and acts: With TEND, I have done this by profoundly reconstructing the experience of switching on a light.
TEND is a tabletop light that incorporates characteristics of bioluminescent organism light actuation. In order to turn it on, the user must nudge it enough to make the water inside the glass vessel turbulent. The turbulent water will then illuminate and glow bright until the lamp sways to a stop and the water becomes still, causing the lamp to go dark.
In contemporary life the light switch has become ingrained in the individual psych and worked into our muscle memory so much so that its use almost never rises to the level of consciousness. While a child who hasn't developed these filters might still, flip lights on and off as fast as they can, shake an uneven table, or enjoy the motions of swinging back and forth on a jungle gym, adults hardly ever engage their surroundings this way.
TEND turns the whole lamp itself into a switch--the whole lamp becomes the occurrence of turning on a light. In this way, the light is secondary, and its actuation primary.
TEND not only makes you think about our relationship with our built environment, it projects into the future and helps us understand how we may one day define human-ness
