Angela Ha, Betwixt & Beyond [×]

Screens, streams and cyber machines, these are the companions of 2020.
Digital frames and virtual planes, these are the domains which keep us sane.
Stepping into the new decade, nobody could have predicted how dramatically the world would change as a result of Covid-19. This research is derived from the altered modes of interaction and spatial inhabitation that see us transition into an increasingly interiorised and digitalised state.
On the cusp of the 4th Industrial Revolution, humankind is no longer limited to exclusively digital or physical realms. Data is leaping off 24” screens, now possessing the capacity to influence events in our tangible material worlds. As digital and physical converge, new qualities and opportunities occur. The increased digitisation of the world requires a renewed design methodology in response to this new normal.
Betwixt & Beyond explores the connections which arise from the interactions of body and space; the visible and invisible; apparatus and surface. This is tested in the context of digital-physical convergence in a civic building forecourt.
The shared physical social experience has been diminished by technological advancement and its impact realised once again with the emergence of the pandemic. This project aims to dissolve the perceived existence of a definitive boundary between the digital and physical, allowing technology to elevate, rather than detract. The eradication of the conventional perception of duality between the digital and physical offers us an enrichment of actuality. When the blurring of digital and analogue interiors create in-between spaces, what is our experience of reality when these realms converge?
These convergent interiors contribute to the emerging acceptance of a digital-physical world. Unlocking this great potential for enhancement of our current realities is both exciting and fraught.