Nate Laffan

Ph.D. Student in Computational Media at UCSC

I research how digital tools impact our memories and attention.

Research

The Slow Space Editor

The Slow Space Editor is an XR tool designed to help users create personalized, restorative virtual environments for reflection and attention restoration, broadening access to contemplative spaces through an accessible 2D interface.

Inscribe : Designing for Reflection in VR (CHI 2023)

At CHI 2023 I presented a prototype of a WebXR reflection space at the Reflection Workshop. The paper lays out basic considerations for designing reflective environments in VR, and will soon include a prototype you can use with your own VR headset. Interested? Sign up to get updates about the project.

Media Works

Playbook

A digital sketchbook of experiments in Blender and P5.js.

Contact

In case you missed that top bit: I research how digital tools impact our memories and attention. My work focusses on memory studies, environmental psychology, reflection and externalized cognition.

Currently, I am studying how the technologies that we use to extend our personal memories affect what (and how) we remember collectively.

Before starting at UCSC, I was head of design at PolySync, an autonomous vehicle startup in Portland, Oregon. I've also worked in various freelance capacities as a designer, photographer, illustrator, developer and book binder.

COLOPHON

Any website is only the very tip of an enormous iceberg of extraordinary applications and services, the vast majority of which are invisible to the end user, the designer and even the developer. Those that I am aware of I have listed below. If you are even partially responsible for any of them, you have my humble thanks. What a world we live in.

FONTS

The headers are a combination of Kaneda Gothic and Calluna, courtesy of Adobe Fonts.

DEVELOPMENT

This is a Next.js site (with some secret Phaser spice up top) that parses MDX for the project pages, coded mostly by hand but with some last-minute help from Claude.

TOOLS

Layout designed with Sketch. Halftone photo effect created using Paragraphic*. Magical rock garden generated with ComfyUI running Flux.1.

* An absolutely brilliant piece of software, created by a single developer using Godot . Check out the free trial if you haven't already.