Past Forward: The Wearable Computer as Bling

In 1993, well before Google Glass debuted, the artist Lisa Krohn designed a prototype wearable computer that looked like no other. The Cyberdesk was an experiment in augmented reality, fusing fashion with function to extend the user's senses. The four circles along the breastbone are a four-key keyboard with a large trackball at the top center. A small microphone lies against the throat, and an earpiece hooks into the left ear. Krohn imagined the yellow tube in front of the right eye as a retinal scan display that would project a laser beam directly onto the back of the eye, creating a screen centered in the user's field of view. Krohn never built a working version of the Cyberdesk. Rather, she viewed it as “strategic foresight, speculative technology, predictive design, or design fiction.” And it's yet another case where art, like science fiction, has the uncanny ability to anticipate the future.