Ebook: Design Noir: The Secret Life of Electronic Objects

Dunne and Raby investigate the real physical and cultural effects of the digital domain, demonstrating that mobile phones, computers and other electronic objects such as televisions profoundly influence people's experience of their environment. Their ideas have important implications for architecture and design. In this, their first major book, they introduce their extraordinary new way of thinking about objects, space and behaviour to a broad audience. The book is divided into three sections: 1. Manifesto, introducing the authors' ideas about electromagnetic space. 2. Conversations, in which Dunne and Raby talk to a variety of designers, architects and artists about the impact electronic technology has on their practice. 3. Placebo, presenting the intriguing results of a project involving Dunne and Raby's working furniture prototypes, including a chair that lets the sitter know when radiation is passing through his body.

Anthony Dunne and Fiona Raby are Research Fellows at the Royal College of Art; London. Dunne trained as an industrial designer, and Raby as an architect, and both lived in Japan during the 1980s, where Dunne worked for Sony, and Raby worked for Toyo Ito.