I’m still unsure what I want to make, but my thinking has already shifted a lot since I started. When I started, I wanted to do a communication piece, bridging academia or important ideas with pop culture and the public.
After the World of Stories and the Interdisciplinary Futures readings, especially on hauntology, Introduction to Interdisciplinary Studies, and Speculative Everything, I started thinking about the multiple possibilities of the futures, ambiguity, and the end of the ability to dream.
New project theme: I would like to use design or art tools to inspire people to create a better future, by presenting possible futures. The result will be something physical, which brings the future within reach (books with photography/illustrations, interactive posters, installation).
Speculative Design
I just finished reading the book “Speculative Everything: Design, Fiction, and Social Dreaming” by Anthony Dunne and Fiona Raby and suddenly found a thread connecting my interests. The book suggests that the world does not dream anymore, but designers can inspire new dreams. As we lose the ability to imagine an alternative future, designers can make themselves useful by presenting possibilities, by making speculative concepts. It’s not about fixing today’s problems or predicting the future, but presenting a fictional future that invites viewers to actively engage and debate about the future they do and do not want.
Dunne and Raby are interested in ambiguous, poetic artifacts, that make the viewer think about “human nature manifested in machines and systems”. For example, a “flypaper robotic clock” uses flies as fuel to generate energy to power an LCD clock.
I like the idea of doing speculative design because it addresses a few of my key concerns when thinking about my project:
- I don’t want to tell people what to do. We all want to build a better future, but what is “better”? I’m not the one to decide. Otl Aicher designed a brand identity for a German town, and Canadian designer/problem solver Bruce Mau tried to redesign Dubai and wrote books about how to change the world. I do not wish to do that. Speculative design deals with what could happen, not what should happen, and by merely presenting an alternative, the viewers are invited to think about the future and they can try to avoid it or build it.
- Functions of design: Design is more than aesthetics, it can also be communication, problem-solving, and proposals. I used to think the biggest value of design is its communication ability, but after reading the book, I see that designers can give shape and propose new alternatives, which inspires others. Also, now that I’m out of the design industry, I suddenly realise design is not as important as I thought it is. It’s the design interacting with the designed content that makes an impact.
How speculative design relates to the course:
Narrative: hidden narratives/paths to get to the future; a poetic artifact that is a story in itself.
Futures: takes place in the fictional future
Art: the format is art. For example, photography, user manual, machine, illustration
Data: TBC, maybe historical imaginations of the future?
Society: make people think about the society, debate
Keywords:
Hope; Agency towards the future; Creating something spreadable, Liminal experience
