Tea Machines | Studio PSK

ALTERNATIVE EXPERIENCES
- Design is not just things. We experience the world around us in a myriad of forms, and design should be responsive to this, exploiting this fact to communicate ideas. By providing firsthand experiences, in the form of workshops, interactive installations and events, these projects aim to engage people in a ‘hands-on’ approach, bringing design to life, and as such combining a wide range of skills, ideas and opinions from all involved.

DIGITAL TOPOLOGY
- Knowingly or otherwise, we are immersed in a Digital Topology. We are surrounded by digital objects and electronics, and these have become an intrinsic, inescapable part of contemporary life at all levels. The projects in this category consider the current and future development of this landscape, and how digital technology can be used in a social, cultural and local way. Merging digital and non-digital elements, I aim to create subtle and creative alternatives for this technology, questioning (and breaking) the rules of the current digital paradigm.

FANTASTICAL
- These projects challenge the concept of what is (im)possible. Asking what we really know about reality, these designs are fantastical in their nature, but never frivolous or parodies. Taking design beyond its traditional role, I intend to show how it can be used to not only clarify, but to distort. Such speculative design can excite and stimulate, feeding our need for discovery and our imagination. The products in this category take us beyond our hopes for the future, making tangible our dreams of today.

Awarded Open:Output Top 50 Project

Featured on Il Compassdo Di Latta Museum website, Milan

The Tea Machines are contraptions to aid the process of time wasting. “Wasting time is doing the simple things the most complicated way.” – Dr. Nagy

We have become slaves to time. “Wasting time” is looked upon as being detrimental, lazy, uneconomical. But wasting time for one person, is thought provoking or inspirational for another. It can be in these moments of tranquillity that our clearest and most profound thoughts occur. “Wasting time” is actually good for us, and contrary to popular belief, can actually improve productivity at work.

How can we re-establish the joy of “wasting time”, and delight in the repetitive acts,such as tea making, we perform unnoticed each day?

This range of products acutely analyses the simple, everyday, mundane process of making a cup of tea, and its repetitive nature. They give permission to the user to enjoy wasting time by elaborately making a spectacle out of this normally overlooked time wasting device.

From dunking the tea bag, pouring the milk, and adding the sugar lump, they create a space for you to joyfully embrace wasting time in a new way.

These three devices take the simple, everyday procrastination tool of making tea, and turn it into an elaborate performance. The act of using the Tea Machines is in itself very gratifying, and may even be more enjoyable than the resulting cup of tea. The objects, highly impractical, question what it means to “waste time”, and attempt to change how it is currently viewed in today?s society.

According to Dr. Nagy, a leading psychologist and the Dundee University Student Support Officer, stress is a huge health and motivational factor.

Idle time is a necessity many people overlook or are reprimanded for. Maybe we should embrace the simple things we do to waste time, and revel in our idle moments.

Research Expert:

Dr. Emese Nagy, Senior Psychologist and Dundee University Student Support Officer, University of Dundee.