Mind Chair

London designers Peter Marigold and Beta Tank have created a chair that uses sensory substitution technology to transmit high-definition moving imagery to the sitter’s brain. The design uses a standard plastic chair with a special electronic device attached to the back of it.

Mind Chair is a standard polypropylene chair fitted with an electronic device that turns pixelated video imagery into physical sensations that are “read” by the sitter’s skin and transmitted to the brain.

The Mind Chair utilises a sensory substitution technique developed by Dr Paul Bach-y-Rita in the late 1960s in which moving imagery is perceived in the mind via nerves in the skin rather than the eyes.

This devise makes use of science attributed to Dr Paul Bach-y-Rita and looks like something you would find on the back of your TV or DVD player, but it is this device that transmits via the seated persons skin, the high definition video imagery. In reality the seated person will mentally ‘see’ the transmission sent by the Mind Chair in all its Technicolor glory.

The aperture in an existing polypropylene chair is fitted with an electronic unit that relays video imagery as dynamic pixelated physical information onto the back of the sitter. The effect is for the viewer to visualise clear and high definition moving image in their mind.

The electronic unit sits as a retrofitted parasite within an existing and very familiar design describing how a technology that is both simple yet astonishing in its effect, could be incorporated into something as ubiquitous as a piece of institutional furniture. The familiarity of the assemblage leads to a guessing game as to how the device might be used in a simple alternative teaching environment.

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