Tetsuo Mukai and Bernadette Deddens make up Study O Portable, a practice that create objects responding to the designed environment and our relationship to the cultural landscape that enable it.
Their recent work considers how a seemingly mundane and ordinary object is actually the result of a long technological development. Abacus Lights (2013) draws a line between the now primitive form of the calculator and abacus; and modern network computers of Bloomberg, exploring how both of these things have afforded key developments in human society.
Glass Pallet (2016) was brought about by Study O Portable’s fascination with global shipping logistics, specifically wooden pallets. Through creating a set of pallets and coffee table in glass and wood, they examined how wooden pallets enable the movement of most things we buy, even though we don’t understand how they operate.
In 2013, Bloomberg commissioned Waste Not, Want It, for which Mukai and Deddens created furniture for Bloomberg HQ, London, incorporating recycled material from the company. Last year, London College of Fashion commissioned them to make a permanent installation – The New Local – for their upcoming campus in Stratford.