Using STEEP and narrative-building techniques like AEOIU and Ax4, I was able to start visualizing my alternate world. I started with several concepts, but quickly zeroed in on the concept of a personal digital twin.
In the year 2035, people no longer need to rely on their intuition and self-knowledge to understand who they are or where they are going in life.
Instead, consumers can use Gemini, the first at-home digital twin interface. Consumers can see a portrait of themselves pulled from all available data- from government surveillance and CCTV footage to fitness trackers. Gemini offers predictive modeling about a person’s life, including everything from urgent health alerts to more abstract goals like progress towards meeting one’s full potential.
Future forecasting and deep research into drivers and singals allowed me to refine my original domain.
I did extensive research to understand what’s happening right now- sourcing information from scholary articles, blogs, news pieces, product releases and message boards.
I looked at scientific breakthroughs, legislative decisions and product releases to try to understand signals and drivers.
In the year 2035…
People have a digital twin of themselves or their brains
The world’s brainpower is stored in plants
Wearables allow humans to communicate without speaking or typing
All of the research, signals, scenarios and stories lead to one big picture question:
How would a digital twin and an increased level of personalized data impact our sense of self, time, freedom, memory, and agency?
Gemini
A speculative design project that seeks to raise questions around how personal data is data personified in the form of a digital twin.
It investigates the feedback loop: if every aspect of our inner lives is data-fied, how would constant access to that data transform us?
Deliverables and tools:
Product Design
Motion Design
Video
Sound Design
Web Design
Identity
The creation of a website for the product Gemini allowed me to explore what a digital twin of the self would look like - and how it’s already a reality. Some excerpts of the website:
Questions this project hopes to inspire:
How we equate data with knowledge?
How does the assumption that more data is always better and that technology knows us better than we know ourselves?
How does data change our perception of the future by framing it in terms of metrics and probability?
How data collection can be a form of both cataloguing and control?
How much of this speculative project is already a reality?
See the website and commercial for Gemini: