Your Home is Your Canvas
“More emotion-led connection to life and art is especially appealing in this era of small-screen fatigue”
artist Joe Hamilton’s video Cezanne Unfixed projected onto an atrium wall (image courtesy of Barco)
“Embedded beautifully within the context of a space, the immersive experience is whatever you want it to be at that moment”
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Emerging technology is going beyond just making homes smart to making them expressive
by Kirsten Nelson
February 11, 2022
Life’s most evocative moments have one thing in common: All the senses are in play. A fireside sip of single-malt scotch enjoyed amidst the salty air of Islay’s shores. The bittersweet moment when retiring MotoGP legend Valentino Rossi roars across his final finish line, captured from every angle by cameras on his bike and lingering in the skies above. Or even just the sudden lamplit quiet after you close the cover of a really good book.
Whatever moments move you, they become more memorable when you’re surrounded by every sensory element they have to offer. Lately this idea has entered the marketingverse as the highly sellable “immersive experience,” but there’s a lot more to the notion than just a lot of large-scale video and sound filling a room.
Sure, those things are nice, and we should have them everywhere we want to escape or enhance reality. But let’s lean on another slightly overhyped marketing notion and talk about the “curation” of these moments. When they’re done right, and every sensory and aesthetic notion is blended with intention, more moments qualify as truly moving.
More emotion-led connection to life and art is especially appealing in this era of small-screen fatigue. Everyone is tired of the tiny rectangles that dictate our days, but we love the unbounded entertainment and connection they offer. Clearly we’re not abandoning our many essential electronics any time soon, so maybe it’s time we reconfigured their presence to create a more embracing, multi-sensory effect throughout the places where we live (and work).
The melding of tech with a cultivated emotional resonance and aesthetic has been happening in luxury homes for quite some time. Specialist designers certainly know how to deliver the single-malt scotch version of home theater and automation. But now there’s a cask-strength option that delivers an even bolder impression.
We’re reaching a point where exceptional architecture, fine art, and highly cultivated aesthetics are complemented by more thoughtfully integrated technology. Suddenly, the long-held dictate that all ugly electronics must disappear is transforming into a more harmonious—maybe even immersive—blend of digital and analog elements.
Luxury homes are becoming full-scale digital canvases for media experiences. Beyond the home theater room, there are new ways of enlivening the spaces where we gather and relax. Gaming simulation environments, full-scale video walls, spatialized audio, and highly choreographed lighting and shade systems are now essential components to a far more captivating rendition of the high-tech home.
This goes beyond just making video bigger. We’re moving past scaled rectangles into a more seamlessly integrated media architecture, where any surface might be converted into a real-time expression of aesthetics and entertainment. These visual
elements can conform to an expansive array of contours. Think of it as digital wallpaper. Or better, think of it as the next stunningly transformative element you want to add to your home. Embedded beautifully within the context of a space, the immersive experience is whatever you want it to be at that moment.
Ever-changing sound and image installations are particularly appealing to those who collect interactive fine art. Modern collections are anything but static. Anyone with a serious NFT collection will attest that they need new ways of displaying artwork. And excitement is just beginning to build around burgeoning artists who work in emerging media, designing original pieces with generative audio and visual elements that constantly change and reflect the dynamic elements of the modern home.
Culture is once again shifting the role of electronics in the home. Yes, there are still plenty of novelty factors that will make a big impression on a gadget-centric level. But now we’re seeing a newly refined approach to incorporating the must-haves throughout aesthetically-driven environments. Now a tech-infused home isn’t just smart, it’s sophisticated.
Kirsten Nelson is a Brooklyn-based writer, speaker, event content producer, and podcast host who writes frequently for technology brands, integration firms, and experience design agencies. She was the editor of SCN magazine, and before that, co-launched Residential Systems. Kirsten is also a co-founder, editor, and writerly salon host of CreativeStack, a newsletter for the experience design community.
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above | Refik Anadol’s digital artwork Melting Memories (also shown in the video below)
“Luxury homes are becoming full-scale digital canvases for media experiences”
human-centric lighting like Ketra not only adjusts to the changing color temperature of daylight but can be used to set distinctly different moods for a room
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