What if you could just say hi to a mailbox?

Revisiting my transparent-glass concept, Looking Glass, nearly twenty years later: not information about the world, but a conversation with it

Hi.

Nearly twenty years ago, I sketched a pane of transparent glass you could hold up to the world. Point it at a building, and the information you needed appeared right on the thing itself. The concept won a design award in 2009, and I have kept coming back to it ever since.

Today, information is everywhere. Answers are one question away. So when I picked up Looking Glass again, the question changed. Not “what should the glass tell me?” but “what if the thing I’m looking at could talk back?”

How it feels

Get Mac Funamizu’s stories in your inbox

Join Medium for free to get updates from this writer.

Remember me for faster sign in

You hold the glass up to something and touch it. Two eyes appear on the object, but only inside the glass. The street, the room and the hill outside stay exactly as they are. Then a short conversation begins, in small bubbles, the way you would talk to a friend.

“Morning.” / “Morning. Am I running late?” / “Take one more sip.”

A mug on the kitchen table. Care often hides in very small things.

“You’re back.” / “Sorry I’m late. Are you thirsty?” / “A little. And the window was bright today.”

“Ready?” / “Almost. Did I forget anything?” / “Your keys.”

The things we carry for years know our habits better than we think.

“You came up the hill.” / “How long have you been here?” / “Longer than the road.”

Some things were here long before us. It felt right to let them speak first.

“Good evening.” / “Good evening. Is there a room free tonight?” / “For how many?”

Arriving in a town at dusk, a building that greets you feels warmer than a booking page.

Why it works this way

The faces live only inside the glass. The real world is never altered, and a little life appears only when you pay attention to it.

The bubbles are short on purpose. I wanted technology that gets out of the way, so that you end up looking at the mailbox, not at the glass.

And I did not start from features. I started from small human moments: a forgotten key, a quiet morning, a late arrival in an unfamiliar place. In Japan, there is a familiar feeling that things we care for hold a kind of spirit. I am not sure that is what I am doing here, but it feels close.

I don’t claim that nobody has ever imagined talking objects. What I wanted to explore is the manner: a world left untouched, a face that exists only in the glass, and conversations short enough to send you back to the world.

This is still a concept, and the technology does not exist yet. But if the glass were real, what would you want to say hi to?