Parasitic Products is a suite of working digital radios with a difference. Each radio is based on a real world parasite (gall wasp, ichneumon wasp and hookworm), and can only survive by parasitising another domestic appliance. The behaviours, characteristics and aesthetic are directly based on the reference parasites.

Gall wasp radio uses chemical reactions to produce energy and change the host's chemical & physical structure. Ichneumon Wasp radio tricks iPhones into giving up their electricity to power itself. The hookworm radio survives by suppressing the communication systems of its hosts, drawing power from phone lines and blocking wifi.

The project was instigated by brief by The V&A Museum, London on Digital Futures. This could be interpreted in numerous ways, and little direction was given.

The studio chose to use the opportunity of an open brief to examine ideas on an alternative route for product design in a connected ecology. As we move further into an era of connectedness with Internet of Things prevalence, we felt it was our job as designers to provide a critical discourse around the topic.

How might such a system evolve unexpected outcomes? Any emerging technology or system is subverted to some extent, but what form might that take for IoT? The type of relationships forming between objects, people and systems in this context is closely akin to a natural/biological ecology. Looking at nature in terms of design is nothing new, but it is often confined to a romanticised ideal rather than the predatory or parasitic nature of real natural relationships.

It was these tension points that we felt were most interesting to explore. We wanted to explore the metaphor of parasitism, and the idea of 'designed deviance' as a method of critique and suggestion of alternate trajectories for this technology.

Through the initial research, it became clear that radios were the perfect products to be parasites. In their early development, they lacked a design language, and were often embedded into pieces of furniture, or other familiar objects, to make their way into the domestic environment. This was an early form of 'parasitism' we extrapolated for this project.

Using parasitism as a metaphor, it was always very important for us to use this to directly inform the behaviours of the products created. A key ethos of the studio is the ability to create small objects that tell a big story. The research behind this project was hugely in-depth, and resulted in a 70 page book being written to document and collate this.

Much of the studio's work involves merging fact and fiction, and this project was no exception. Although the objects themselves were not commercial, or ever meant to exist beyond the exhibition setting, it was important they were finished to a high degree of resolution, and were fully working. To create immersive ideas of alternative presents, or 'near nows', the project had to have an element of grounding. This came in the form of the tangible outcomes created, and the fact that they were derived from extrapolation of factual events. Physical objects have the ability to cast myth and ideas into reality, blurring the line between fact and fiction.

A lot of secondary research was performed on the history of the radio, and future of connected objects. A detailed timeline was drawn up documenting the key historical points of the radio evolution, and potential points in the near future of connected objects.

For the parasitic element of the research, a lot of work was spent examining the role of parasites in ecologies, but also their place in popular and technological history. Arguably the first non-natural parasite was the Creeper computer virus of 1971, and parasites have continued to play prominent roles in film and literature.

We were extremely lucky to also get direct support and input from some of the world's leading parasitologists and entomologists (Professor Colin Sutherland - The London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, Dr Gavin Broad – The Natural History Museum, London and Joanne Hatton – The Horniman Museum).

These research experts were invaluable in discovering the intricacies of biological parasitism, and making sure the scientific underpinning was accurate.

For the technical development of the objects, all the electronics and programming was done in-house. Novel methods were developed specifically for this project in order to extract power from sources such as iOS devices, phone sockets and via chemical reactions. A system was also developed to block wifi whilst maintaining radio signal quality.

The aesthetic considerations of the pieces were extremely important also. The desire not to compromise on these initially proved to be a barrier to embedding electronics, but through perseverance, a solution was developed to make striking looking, functional objects. In order to produce these artefacts, the housing was 3D printed and hand finished in-house.

The aim of the project was to act as a design provocation, to propose ideas of an alternative trajectory for a connected ecology of objects. What are the ethical and social implications of designing objects that are not just connected and collaborative, but parasitic and disruptive?

In addition to the comment on product connectivity, the project provides an important critique on the use of deviance as a tool/methodology within product design, as a way to instigate paradigm shift.