Extending the Human
Invent a new “extension of man” — a speculative media technology that enhances, alters, or creates a human sense.
Marshall McLuhan described media as “extensions of man” — tools and technologies that amplify, reshape, or reroute our senses and our relationship to the world. In this project, students will speculatively design a new technology that extends the human body or senses and meaningfully alters how a person perceives and interacts with their environment.
This is a design proposal that explores how media reshapes perception, behavior, and meaning.
Students are tasked with inventing a new sensory relationship between humans and the world.
Their technology must:
- Extend or transform a human sense
- (Sight, hearing, touch, taste, smell, balance, temperature, time perception, emotions, etc.)
- Actively interact with the surrounding environment
- It must not be passive. It should sense, translate, filter, amplify, or reinterpret environmental data.
- Create new meaning between a human and their environment
- What becomes noticeable that wasn’t before? What becomes invisible? What new relationships form?
Student Examples:
