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"Attentive Futures - Rethinking presence in digital spaces"

Exhibition of students’ works of Interaction Design MA Programme at MOME, Budapest

Curated by Agoston Nagy

Participants: Alina Khisamova, Sára Muszka, Brigitta Burkus, Kitana Kovács, Danijel Markovic

Institute Liszt / Hungarian Cultural Center, Sofia, 18.09 – 14.11.2025

Started in 2022, the Interaction Design MA Programme at Moholy-Nagy University of Art and Design (MOME) Budapest trains experts who are poised to play a leading role in designing the most innovative digital services of the future. Its graduate designers are well-versed in the international landscape and its opportunities, and are fully equipped to make a meaningful impact on digital culture. Since human-machine interaction design will become a leading design field in the future, the programme aims to empower students with solid professional knowledge and future-proof market competences that will allow them to compete anywhere in the world. Students are divided into small, diverse groups and receive mentoring to successfully develop their own design character and professional focus. They will work towards addressing professional and social challenges, with input from market partners, to develop an experimentational, critical, and creative approach built on genuine expertise.

Alina Khisamova
Calm Tech Wearable

This project is an interaction design research study focused on Calm Technology wearables that enables non-verbal emotional communication. Through personalized light signals, gentle vibrations, and simple gestures, the wearable helps long-distance partners share emotional states and messages without relying on constant verbal exchange. It is especially relevant for expats navigating cultural adaptation, time zone differences, and emotional fatigue. By encouraging a quiet, shared emotional language, the wearable device offers a subtle way to maintain closeness and ease moments of loneliness across distance.

Sára Muszka
Unfinished Thread Ritual

The unfinished keeps people in a psychological liminal space - they have begun to interact with it, but it is not yet considered closed. The concept are grounded in qualitative research, including diary studies where reveal how individuals experience and navigate their own unfinished. Rather than designing interfaces that enforce completion, this project highlights how ritual can offer a structured way to engage with the in-between state, creating a space for transformation and symbolic closure. By using the thread as a cultural metaphor - symbolizing fate, loose threads, and guidance — and drawing on the mythological narrative of Greek fate figures as ritual agents, the interface creates an opportunity to interact with the unfinished. These experiences also extend into a physical ritual space, where users can embody their symbolic actions by releasing, pausing, or opening their unfinished.

Brigitta Burkus
Reimagining Social Media in the Attention Economy

While originally designed to maintain interpersonal connection and dialogue, social platforms have evolved into media consumption channels, driven by engagement-maximizing algorithms. As a result, users are increasingly exposed to passive content—such as advertisements, influencer posts, and news—while genuine peer-to-peer interaction has diminished. The rise of the terms like doomscrolling and brainrot reflect growing public concern over the psychological toll of these experiences. In response, this project aims to design a healthier model of digital social interaction—one that prioritizes intentional use, conscious engagement, and meaningful connection. By eliminating addictive features and reframing platform architecture, the goal is to reestablish digital spaces that support mindful communication rather than compulsive consumption.

Kitana Kovács
Seam - Digital Therapy Support Tool

The project investigates the pervasive impact of gendered microaggressions, conceptualizing them as "Little T" traumas that cumulatively erode mental health and self-worth. Using ambivalent sexism theory and trauma frameworks, the thesis analyzes the emotional toll these experiences take, drawing on qualitative data from a participatory workshop. Participants shared narratives that revealed themes of self-doubt, alienation, and hypervigilance, while also engaging in resilience-building practices such as grounding techniques and narrative therapy. The study highlights the potential of critical and community-based design interventions to foster awareness, collective validation, and systemic change. Ultimately, the work calls for both individual and societal strategies to make invisible harms visible, promote healing, and cultivate inclusive environments.

Danijel Markovic
Express the now

Express the now is not intended to replace professional therapy, instead, it is an installation inspired by the existing research on expressive writing. Drawing from psychology, emotional experience and metaphor, the project invites participants into a quiet, reflective space where they can explore their inner thoughts through writing. This installation provides a safe and anonymous environment, free from judgment, where individuals are encouraged to engage in personal expression. Through simple written reflection and subtle sensory cues, Express the now becomes a living experience of presence, vulnerability and self-awareness. It is not a product, but a participatory space for emotional engagement, designed as a moment of stillness within the noise of daily life.