▸ Sonic UX Research Lab · ● Speculative Artefacts
Imagined instruments for making, shaping and controlling sound — drawn rather than built, so that the questions they raise can be asked before anyone commits to answering them.
Nothing here is a product and nothing here runs. These are images and briefs. Interactive pieces live on the art page.
Nine artefacts · more to come
A dial on the wall that sets a room's acoustic conditions the way a thermostat sets its temperature — from dead and confidential at one end to bright and sociable at the other. Every surface is a variable, so choosing a setting means the walls, rather than the people, decide how a conversation will go.
A floor-standing appliance that “cleans” unwanted sounds from the home. It sucks arguments, crying babies and traffic noise into a transparent filter chamber.
A tiny robotic pigeon that follows you around making reassuring pigeon noises.
A cased set of brass surveyor's stakes and one calibrated bell, for marking where your acoustic property ends. You drive the stakes; the bell tells you when you've crossed someone else's. Sold to homeowners in dispute, and to neighbours who have stopped speaking.
Sits beside your bed and says one nice thing about you every morning. Premium subscription unlocks specificity.
A tiny wearable speaker that gives you appropriate cinematic music whenever you enter a room.
Rent a pair by the day and clip them over your own. Because your pinna is the reason you can tell up from down, a different one moves every direction in the world by a few degrees — so this is sold as tourism. Hear the concert hall the way a different skull would.
Instead of detecting smoke, it detects whether you're emotionally overwhelmed and starts making calming noises. Unfortunately, it becomes increasingly frantic when you don't calm down.
A collar that automatically adds a laugh track to your social interactions. Be the life of the party!
A credit card that allows you to purchase noise-canceling services for your daily commute. Controls how much noise you may make, where the balance is your remaining permitted decibels for the month.
A kettle that automatically starts whistling when you've been making tea for too long, subtly reminding you to take a break. Whistles differently depending on how long you've ignored it.
A glass terrarium containing miniature mechanical creatures that feed on ambient sound. Loud noises make them grow. Eventually your neighbour's leafblower creates a monster.
A wearable device that continuously generates a tiny private soundscape representing your physiological state. Other people can hear it if you allow them to.
A physical booklet containing coupons for making noise: one party, three arguments, five hours of music, 20 minutes of vacuuming. End disagreements between roommates with coupons!
A bedside device that listens to your sleep and prints a physical receipt in the morning: REM hours, dream intensity, snoring events, emotional disturbance, "three moments of existential dread."
The artefacts are speculative: they are drawn to make a question askable, not to propose a product. Several began as prompts from the EARS deck. If you would like to use one in teaching or writing, or want to know what a particular one was arguing with, get in touch.