SPEK: AUGMENTED REALITY FOR THE INFORMAL ECONOMY

SPEK investigates the future of informal AR-enabled commerce. Designed by Alexia along with her teammates Bernice Wong and Teng Yu as part of their Systems, Scale and Consequence class at SVA's Products of Design, SPEK is a platform that uses inconspicuous, smart eyewear to create and access an underground exchange network. With SPEK, the future of retail turns to the streets. In the midst of any urban environment, participants—also known as SPEKulators—will be within their own eclectic marketplace, each able to buy, sell, or trade items amongst peers.

The team prototyped examples of the "smart" eye-ware, keeping in mind that in order to maintain the inconspicuous nature of the network, they would have to be just like everyday eye glasses. Here is how SPEK works: