For "Surface Matters," developed during her time as a Designer in Residence at the Design Museum in London, Jo dreamed up concepts for a speaker and a lighting system, both designed from the ground up as "integrated physical and digital experiences." The speaker, created with some help from engineer Seitaro Taniguchi, takes the form of two joined hemispheres, like a pair of bongo drums sitting on its side. One of those blares the audio; the other is the interface. A solid ring around the outside lets you pick which aspect you want to control–track, volume and equalization–but actually changing the values involves swiping your fingers along a springy piece of fabric. It's like a pair of pantyhose as a UI.
The second design, a concept for a new type of interior lighting solution, is both more unusual and more useful. It re-imagines ambient lighting as a wall-mounted decoration, using Philips OLEDs and Kvadrat fabrics to create a grid of flapjack-sized, touch-sensitive circles all wrapped up in a single hanging textile. These, Jo says, "could be fabricated like wallpapers, in various shapes, sizes and forms."
Swiping across a miniature trampoline probably isn't the most efficient way to explore a playlist. But as we put high-tech smarts in not just lights and speakers but in washing machines, microwaves, front doors, tables, and microwaves, it's worth keeping in mind that those objects don't necessarily have to look like the old versions. There may be new pleasures for our fingers to find.
