Every year, technology companies prepare to unveil their most outlandish experiments at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas. The convention’s wall-to-wall array of zany gadgets, which run the gamut from nibbling animatronic plushies to exercise machines with ludicrously large OLED displays, instills wonder about what the future holds for consumer technology. Gawking aside, you don’t have to be a tech wiz to realize most of the innovations never hit shelves—but that’s part of the fun. At CES, companies seem more focused on pushing the envelope and tickling the imagination than hashing out price points and production.

The pandemic, of course, has thrown a wrench in the spectacle. The show once attracted 200,000 attendees but went fully virtual in 2021 and isn’t projected to meet its pre-pandemic attendance this year. Rising economic uncertainty, scant access to parts and manufacturing, and stagnant venture-capital funding are raising the barriers faced by startups seeking to bring products to market. Mass layoffs and policymakers suspicious of Big Tech’s dominance only reduce the likelihood that startups can cash out and get acquired by a large firm. This is all fueling tech analysts’ predictions of seeing familiar items on the floor and fewer tricked-out gadgets. Despite the grim outlook, this year’s edition has no shortage of innovation.

As expected, AI makes a major showing. In the wearables department, Citizen’s CZ Smart smartwatch features an AI-powered “self-care advisor” that leverages NASA and IBM technology to create personalized tips to boost alertness and combat daily fatigue. Beauty giant Neutrogena’s Skin360 app is teaming up with Nourished to create on-demand 3D-printed skin supplements with AI-driven personalized formulas. Our favorite? Q-Bear’s baby crying translator, a small crib-fitted device that can analyze if your ankle biter needs food, a diaper change, or to be held. (The Simpsons may have done that first, though.)

These, of course, are only scratching the surface. Below is a not-so-exhaustive list of the most notable debuts at this year’s show, which runs until Sunday, Jan. 8:

Have a news story our readers need to see? Submit it here.

Reach the design world every morning. Find out more about advertising in the Design Dispatch.

Japanese traditions have long influenced Theaster Gates, the civic-minded artist whose Rebuild Foundation has launched a variety of urban improvement projects in Chicago’s South Side. In 2019, he plumbed the intersection between the country’s philosophy and Black culture through sculptural assemblages at London’s White Cube. This past summer, at the Aichi Triennale, he transformed a former earthenware pipe factory in Japan’s once-booming ceramics hub of Tokoname into The Listening House, a space for creative exchange. It was a full-circle moment for Gates, who partook in a ceramics residency there in 2004.

His latest foray into this cultural binary lands at the Nasher Sculpture Center, where he transformed a gallery into Afro Mingei, a convivial gathering space that combines the culinary traditions of Japan and the African American South. On the menu are small plates such as cornmeal dumplings with shiitake leek broth and kabocha squash served on ceramic wares made by his design studio Dorchester Industries, which also fabricated the salvaged wood bar. Afterward, guests can revel with Japanese whiskey set to the tune of 1,000 vinyl records from Gates’s collection of soul and R&B music.

Gates intends Afro Mingei—named after the celebrated Black hairstyle and the Japanese term for honoring everyday objects—as an environment of intimacy and cultural pluralism, as well as a platform for chefs, poets, and musicians of color. “So often, as I consider my history with ceramics and craft, I feel as if other hands are guiding my hands,” Gates tells Surface. “Afro Mingei is a gesture within my artistic practice that acknowledges the cultural transmissions imparted to me. [It’s] as much a question about influence, appropriation, citation, and labor as it is a forum where I can demonstrate what’s possible when great cultures mix and remix.”

As travel—whether it be a commute for the office-bound or a flurry of passport stamps and layovers for the jetset—has rebounded, so too has interest in making a life lived in transit a little more effortless. Over the past year, Cadence’s endlessly refillable, recyclable, and leakproof hexagonal Capsules have been taking over the conversation around how to embark on life’s adventures with beauty and wellness routines in tow, all while divesting from single-use plastics.

Cadence founder Steph Hon sat down with Surface to talk about overcoming “no”s from investors and engineers, why post-consumer plastic is the future, and finding the common ground between dance and engineering.

When: Jan. 6–Feb. 4

Where: Friedman Benda, Los Angeles

What: Experimenting with new typologies and complex compositions, the premise behind the Swiss sculptor’s latest array of tongue-in-cheek sculptures is simple: “I love shrimp,” she says. “And these pieces remind me of shrimp, how they’re curved downwards like a tail.” Each contoured luminaire floats in unpredictable ways around a wooden structure while exploring the interplay between positive and negative space.

When brands from Karl Lagerfeld to COS start using a material, it’s time to start paying attention. And cactus leather—the vegan alternative made from dried pads of mature desert cacti varieties—is definitely earning its moment in the sun as a new fashion mainstay. Sadly, the design industry has been slow to get on the bandwagon. But the L.A.-based interior, product, and textile designer Natasha Baradaran hopes to change that.

Her Livwell Cactus Leather, likely the industry’s first cruelty-free option, is sourced from an organic farm in central Mexico. The cactus itself is grown without damaging irrigation systems, watered only by rain; it’s dried only by the sun, without additional energy use. The leather is biodegradable and complies with the Global Recycled Standard. Little of this would matter, of course, if the vegan leather wasn’t appealing. Fortunately, it’s as beautiful as it is ethical. Baradaran bets she can herd designers towards iterations in pebbled, canvas, and geometric patterns in colorways like terracotta and sky—and away from their bovine predecessors.

Since 1980, Ratana has offered quality craftsmanship and timeless designs of outdoor furnishings. Inspired by legendary landscapes, Ratana debuted a range of furniture from traditional to contemporary that blends form and function with ease.

Surface Says: This outdoor furniture company elevates living spaces with high-quality pieces that channel nature’s finest elements and enhance the enjoyment of time spent at home.

Sari Soininen’s otherworldly, LSD-laced photographs star in a new book.

William Strobeck is bringing intimacy to skateboarding films for Supreme.

A historic Wisconsin cheese landmark has become a hotel for dairy lovers.

New minerals found in a giant meteorite may reveal clues about asteroids.