How We Design Books

Text by Daria Tuminas,
First published on Unseen Magazine #6, print, May 2019.


''The Best of Mr. Chao – A Futurologist Collection presents a make-believe archive of weird and wonderful objects brought together by a fictional researcher, Mr. Chao. The collection charts his fascination for the relationship between nature, artifice and technological advancement. Robotic ants, a mechanical fish, a VR headset and an electric handheld coffee frother are just some of the many items that appear in the photographs – often applied in bizarre contexts, as if to suggest their initial function was never fully understood. Guilherme Gerais sought visual inspiration from visits to laboratories, recreations of actual scientific experiments and his own vivid imagination. As well as examining how nature informs scientific progress, the project underlines the agency we have in designing our own future. Interestingly, the edit of the dummy was left to artificial intelligence: a visual recognition service was employed to determine the size and sequence of photographs in the layout''.