Hello!
I'm Viraj, a designer, technologist, and futurist based in London.
I produce both design and fiction for our technological and social futures.
Currently at Fjord London
Visiting Tutor at the Royal College of Art
ELIZA – THE GHOST IN EVERY MACHINE
A weekly AI Fiction cartoon [2021–]
A series of weekly cartoons that personifies an AI and places them in fun, strange, and unforeseen situations.
🎙️ Eliza on Future Based Podcast➚
📝 Eliza feature on UXMag ➚
🖼 Exhibition: Society 5.0 festival, Amsterdam➚
DREAMS OF A RESILIENT PLANET
Climate Change Design Fiction [2022–]
Explorations in climate fiction.
🌎 Read Now➚
🗣 Guest talk: “Climate Collaborations” for UAL
POSTCARDS FROM THE FUTURE
A globally sourced design fiction project [2019–]
30+ one-image stories of curious artefacts and strange situations from probable (and sometimes preferable) futures – produced in a year long collaboration with 21 designers, technologists, historians, futurists, and writers.
🗣️ Talk and Workshop: Primer 21➚
🗣️ Talk and Workshop: Speculative Futures Stockholm➚
🗣️ Talk and Workshop: Speculative Futures Rotterdam➚
AIRWIRE
Gesture driven electronics prototyping technology [2018]
Gesture driven electronics prototyping system that allows you to insert complex code with mere finger swishes.
Technology used: Computer Vision, Physical Computing, Augmented Reality Libraries, Infrared Cameras
💡 Exhibition: Science Museum➚
💡 Exhibition: London Design Festival➚
📚 Clot Magazine➚
📚 Future Facing Innovations➚
📚 Imperial College Article➚
films
THE UTOPIA COMPASS
2020
“The Utopia Compass” — a Speculative Design film by Viraj Joshi and Nadia Piet➚ featured in the United Nations DPPA, and the Design Futures Initiative's "Futuring Peace" exhibition.
THE DOOHICKEY
2020
The Doohickey is a short film produced with Fjord Stockholm, centred around the themes of digital assistants, big tech, and augmented reality.
✍🏼 Design Voices by Fjord➚
📽️ Screening with Speculative Futures Stockholm➚
INTERACTION DESIGN EXPERIMENTS
KINAESTHETIC EMPATHY
2018
In an ambitious design collaboration, I worked with Kensho Miyoshi, who functioned as a curator for objects designed with his principles for Kinaesthetic Empathy in Design. This work is a collaboration between a Puppeteer, a Foley Artist and three product designers.
I designed and prototyped two products based on "Kinaesthetic Empathy➚" principles by Kensho Miyoshi (The curling lamp, and the stomping pepper grinder).
INTUITIVE MIDI INTERFACE FOR VIOLINS
2017
IMI is a MIDI instrument derived from the form factor of a Violin to allow an intuitive & fluent interface for violinists. In a market crowded by MIDI players shaped like keyboards or arrays of buttons, someone who's world view of music is through the interface of a violin has to adopt to a completely new interface to record and edit digital tracks. IMI is a solution aimed at that market.
📝 Yanko Design Article➚
FLARE
2017-18
Flare is a new channel of communication that allows you to experience the presence of your loved ones when you live far away from them.
With Andy Carrera, Bianca Russo and Bob Turner.
Technology used: Computer Vision, Physical Computing, Projection.
Tangible Interface Experiments
2018
What are some physical ways of interacting with the digital world? These simple objects with simple physical functions connect you to the internet to perform simple actions.
One of these objects was featured in “Creative Haptic Interface Design for the Aging Population”, a paper published➚ by Eric Heng Gu.
Interface 1 • Interface 1 • Interface 2 • Interface 3 • Interface 4 • Interface 5 • Interface 6
MORE FICTION
Anomaly in the Rhythm
2018, 2022
A short science fiction story about neural interfaces and a post-work world, published by Newcon press➚ in 2022, performed at Virtual Futures' Near Future Fiction➚ event in London.
PATLYPATRAS
2019
What would a fictional city in India➚ look like today, if the Ancient Greeks had conquered it in 326 BCE? Speculative fiction, exhibited at the Indianama 2019 Exhibition➚.