Work

Most systems optimize for convergence — the answer, the summary, the first plausible output. This track explores the opposite: substrates that resist premature closure. Technology that creates productive friction, maintains possibility space, and lets structure compound from interaction rather than getting imposed from above. Not just “emergent” — actively divergent. Counter-structures for an era where retrieval and generation quietly collapse into sameness.

Knowledge as territory, not inventory. These projects explore how spatial thinking and embodied cognition can make high-dimensional information landscapes navigable — leveraging wayfinding abilities we’ve evolved over millennia. Multi-scale navigation where you can move from overview to detail without losing orientation. Maps, not folders. Territories, not hierarchies.

When computation is cheap and context is deep, interfaces don’t have to be fixed objects. They can be temporary cognitive surfaces — assembled for a task, shaped by where you are in the loop, dissolved when done. What persists is not the UI but the substrate: traces, relationships, provenance. Design systems become grammar; interfaces become sentences generated for the situation. This track explores what happens when design becomes a meta-discipline — when we design the conditions for interface emergence rather than the interfaces themselves.

What happens to agency when we delegate cognition to machines? Not simple binaries — open vs. closed, human vs. AI — but the scaffoldings that allow for synergies. Transparency over what shapes your attention. Ownership of externalized memory. Provenance you can trace. This track explores systems where humans stay oriented and empowered inside increasingly interconnected environments — and where collaboration (human-AI, human-human) compounds rather than fragments.