Highly nomadic as they move from break to break, often with skateboards in tow to kill time during flat sessions, surfers have created a unique mode of design through converting Volkswagen “busses” into residential spaces. Since the 1960’s, typically cash-strapped surfers often resorted to living in their vans due to their mobile lifestyle and the high costs of Southern California. These vans are frequently a blend of iconographic imagery and pure functionality. Aesthetically, there is an eclectic mix of wood and metal surfaces, graphic logo stickers, posters, and surf + skate related paraphernalia. Functionally, there is often a bed, sink, custom lighting, stereo, and cooking equipment. In short, these vans offer the most undistorted window into this gritty subculture and arguably the only uniquely Californian design aesthetic.

The central arrangement of this interactive video installation is a van interior replica constructed as a VFX composite. The video beyond the back doors is a kind of Venice Beach cinéma-vérité shot on location. In augmented reality, tablets transport the viewer from the cramped interior of the van above the legendary Venice boardwalk, floating like a disembodied observer moving from inside to outside, from low to high. The bright lines that crisscross the walls are evocative of classic skateboard graphic color palettes and visually connect the installation to the organized chaos of the freeway networks that intersect and surround the beach cities central to Southern California design culture. Not pictured, but a part of the physical installation, are two companion videos: a curation of classic and contemporary surf + skate videos often found in local equipment shops and a data visualization of annual tides that exists as a connective maritime pulse of both seaside cities.