Dezeen Magazine

Universal Everything explores potential to turn 13 everyday objects into screens

Fish, clothing, architecture and bicycles come with embedded screens in the future imagined by British digital design studio Universal Everything.

The studio has released 13 new video artworks in its ongoing Screens of the Future series – shown all together here.

The product concepts in each video are based on technologies that are emerging today, like flexible displays, shape-shifting materials and context awareness.

Screens of the Future- visionary video art from Universal Everything

"The films highlight humanity's increasingly integrated relationship with technology, serving as product demos of our near future," said Universal Everything.

Among the 13 new videos are ones that show a screen-based building facade rippling and columns twisting.

A dress adapts its textile pattern to fit with the environments it is in, a beanie doubles as a billboard, and a ring displays a weather report.

Screens of the Future- visionary video art from Universal Everything

Screen-covered buoys aid navigation on the water, a flashing bicycle benefits safety, and a light-up plate helps with calorie counting by displaying a food's macronutrients.

Screens of the Future- visionary video art from Universal Everything

Meanwhile, existing smartphones get a holographic display that makes street maps and caller IDs pop out from the screen in three dimensions.

Even Mother Nature is not free from the screen takeover, as two pet fish with augmented scales alert their owner when they need to be fed.

Screens of the Future- visionary video art from Universal Everything

The earlier set of Screens of the Future films featured plants, speakers and another holographic mobile phone.

They were shown at Universal Everything's solo exhibition Anthropologies at Sheffield Institute of Arts Gallery in 2016 and were acquired by the Borusan Contemporary in Istanbul.

Screens of the Future- visionary video art from Universal Everything

Universal Everything worked with a global network of collaborators to create the 13 new films. The studio focuses on "inventing new forms of moving image for the screens of the future".

Its previous projects include the infinitely looping Walking Architecture animation and an augmented reality app made for Radiohead's album The Kings of Limbs.

Project credits:

Creative Directors: Matt Pyke, Mike Hughes
Senior Producer: Greg Povey
Animation Directors: Chris Perry, Matt Frodsham, DXMIQ, Rita Louro, Nicola Gastaldi, Wang & Söderström, Ben White, Joe Street, Kouhei Nakama

More images

Screens of the Future- visionary video art from Universal Everything
Screens of the Future- visionary video art from Universal Everything
Screens of the Future- visionary video art from Universal Everything
Screens of the Future- visionary video art from Universal Everything
Screens of the Future- visionary video art from Universal Everything
Screens of the Future- visionary video art from Universal Everything
Screens of the Future- visionary video art from Universal Everything
Screens of the Future- visionary video art from Universal Everything
Screens of the Future- visionary video art from Universal Everything