Former Somerset House Studios resident

Ted Hunt

Independent speculative, critical and discursive designer.

Somerset House Studios
New Wing
else, Socratic Search
else, Socratic Search

Ted Hunt is engaged with the critical task of returning Homo Sapiens (Latin: wise man) to Sapience (wisdom). Seeing the human brain and natural intelligence (NI) as the most single most advanced technology at our disposal, his work proposes a genuine point of nano-resistance to the market driven march of Artificial Intelligence (AI) / Bots / Robotics and 'Smart Thinking'.  Recently graduating from the Royal College of Art he studied MA Design Interactions under Professor Anthony Dunne and has since sought to continually domesticate the notions of speculative and critical design practice with a broad public audience.  Ted has worked in varying forms and formats with individuals and organisations including; Artangel, Alain de Botton, ICA, Royal College of Art, ReachOutRCA, Southbank Centre, Dulwich College, Fife Contemporary Art & Craft, Rijksmuseum Amsterdam, Cube Design Museum, Vitra Design Museum, MAK Vienna and the Vienna Biennale 2017.

Modes of Thinking, TINA / Alt
Modes of Thinking, TINA / Alt

"Ted Hunt's search tools force users to question our questions rather than finding fast results that confirm pre-existing opinions."

Dezeen
else, Modes of Thinking
else, Modes of Thinking

Ted is increasingly concerned with what he perceives as a seismic social shift that has seen individuals and citizens re-delegated as monolithic hordes of mass 'users'. As such he dedicated his two year residency at Somerset House Studios to advancing the alternative non-linear search engine platform 'else', and the associated speculative investigation Modes of Thinking. Comparing the modern single button search engine to the same limitations of conventional photography that David Hockney labeled as akin 'to looking at the world from the point of view of a paralysed Cyclops', Ted attempted to decentralise and redistribute the default narratives of technological progress offered by the titans of Silicon Valley with a parallel nano-ideology intent on creating space for divergent alternatives and new perspectives. 

Users / People
Users / People