Quotes from reading:
- There are other possibilities
for design: one is to use design as a means of speculating how things could
be-speculative design. This form of design thrives on imagination and aims to
open up new perspectives on what are sometimes called wicked problems, to
create spaces for discussion and debate about alternative ways of being, and
to inspire and encourage people's imaginations to flow freely. Design
speculations can act as a catalyst for collectively redefining our relationship
to reality.
- What we are interested in, though, is the idea of possible futures and using them as tools to better understand the present and to discuss the kind of future people want, and, of course, ones people do not want.
- For us futures are not a destination or something to be strived for but a medium to aid imaginative thought-to speculate with. Not just about the future but about today as well, and this is where they become critique, especially when they highlight limitations that can be removed and loosen, even just a bit, reality's grip on our imagination.
- This is the space of speculative culture-writing, cinema, science fiction, social fiction, and so on. Although speculative, experts are often consulted when building these scenarios, as David Kirby points out in a fascinating chapter about distinctions between what he calls speculative scenarios and fantastic science in his book Lab Coats in Hollywood; the role of the expert is often, not to prevent the impossible but to make it acceptable.
- Design can give experts permission to let their imaginations flow freely, give material expression to the insights generated, ground these imaginings in everyday situations, and provide platforms for further collaborative speculation.
- What we are interested in, though, is the idea of possible futures and using them as tools to better understand the present and to discuss the kind of future people want, and, of course, ones people do not want.
- For us futures are not a destination or something to be strived for but a medium to aid imaginative thought-to speculate with. Not just about the future but about today as well, and this is where they become critique, especially when they highlight limitations that can be removed and loosen, even just a bit, reality's grip on our imagination.
- This is the space of speculative culture-writing, cinema, science fiction, social fiction, and so on. Although speculative, experts are often consulted when building these scenarios, as David Kirby points out in a fascinating chapter about distinctions between what he calls speculative scenarios and fantastic science in his book Lab Coats in Hollywood; the role of the expert is often, not to prevent the impossible but to make it acceptable.
- Design can give experts permission to let their imaginations flow freely, give material expression to the insights generated, ground these imaginings in everyday situations, and provide platforms for further collaborative speculation.
- With the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 and the end of the Cold
War the possibility of other ways of being and alternative models for society
collapsed as well. Market-led capitalism had won and reality instantly shrank.
becoming one dimensional. There were no longer other social or political
possibilities beyond capitalism for design to align itself with. Anything that
did not fit was dismissed as fantasy. as unreal. At that moment. the "real"
expanded and swallowed up whole continents of social imagination marginalizing
as fantasy whatever was left. As Margaret Thatcher famously said, "There is
no alternative."
- Now, a
younger generation doesn't dream, it hopes; it hopes that we will survive,
that there will be water for all, that we will be able to feed everyone, that
we will not destroy ourselves.
- For us, this separation from the marketplace creates a parallel design channel free from market pressures and available to explore ideas and issues. These could be new possibilities for design itself; new aesthetic possibilities for technology; social, cultural, and ethical implications for science
- For us, this separation from the marketplace creates a parallel design channel free from market pressures and available to explore ideas and issues. These could be new possibilities for design itself; new aesthetic possibilities for technology; social, cultural, and ethical implications for science
and technology research; or large-scale social and political issues such as
democracy, sustainability, and alternatives to our current model of
capitalism. This potential to use the language of design to pose questions,
provoke, and inspire is conceptual design's defining feature.
- We are not talking about a space for experimenting with how things are now, making them better or different, but about other possibilities altogether.
- Conceptual design provides a space for doing this. It deals, by definition, with unreality. Conceptual designs are not conceptual because they haven't yet been realized or are waiting to be realized but out of choice. They celebrate their unreality and take full advantage of being made from ideas.
- Conceptual designs are not only ideas but also ideals, and as the moral philosopher Susan Neiman has pointed out, we should measure reality against ideals, not the other way around: "Ideals are not measured by whether they conform to reality; reality is judged by whether it lives up to ideals. Reason's task is to deny that the claims of experience are final-and to push us to widen the horizon of our experience by providing ideas that experience ought to obey."
DARK DESIGN:
- Dark, complex emotions are usually ignored in design; nearly every other area of culture accepts that people are complicated, contradictory, and even neurotic, but not design.
- We are not talking about a space for experimenting with how things are now, making them better or different, but about other possibilities altogether.
- Conceptual design provides a space for doing this. It deals, by definition, with unreality. Conceptual designs are not conceptual because they haven't yet been realized or are waiting to be realized but out of choice. They celebrate their unreality and take full advantage of being made from ideas.
- Conceptual designs are not only ideas but also ideals, and as the moral philosopher Susan Neiman has pointed out, we should measure reality against ideals, not the other way around: "Ideals are not measured by whether they conform to reality; reality is judged by whether it lives up to ideals. Reason's task is to deny that the claims of experience are final-and to push us to widen the horizon of our experience by providing ideas that experience ought to obey."
DARK DESIGN:
- Dark, complex emotions are usually ignored in design; nearly every other area of culture accepts that people are complicated, contradictory, and even neurotic, but not design.
- It is more about the positive use of
negativity, not negativity for its own sake but to draw attention to a scary
possibility in the form of a cautionary tale.
REDUCTO AD ABSURDUM
- a type of logical argument in which one assumes a claim for the sake of argument and derives an absurd or ridiculous outcome by taking it to its extreme, concluding that the original claim must have been wrong because it led to such an absurd result.
- a type of logical argument in which one assumes a claim for the sake of argument and derives an absurd or ridiculous outcome by taking it to its extreme, concluding that the original claim must have been wrong because it led to such an absurd result.
- [The project] was always about highlighting just how
complex and difficult the processes behind even the most simple of everyday
conveniences, like toasting a piece of bread, have become.
COUNTERFACTUALS
- A historical fact is changed to see what might have happened, if . . . . It is sometimes used in history to understand the importance of key events and their influence on how the world turned out.
COUNTERFACTUALS
- A historical fact is changed to see what might have happened, if . . . . It is sometimes used in history to understand the importance of key events and their influence on how the world turned out.
- For writers, it is an interesting way of creating an
alternative present because the reader can understand how that alternate
world might have come about. For design it can provide a fresh alternative to
future- based thinking by presenting parallel worlds as thought experiments
rather than predictions.
Three approaches:
- - Conterfactual – what if – question scenarios
(fictional) create spaces of debate and discussion – total imagination
- - Dark design – questioned the limited range of
emotional and psychological experiences offered by design products (and
marketing) the limitation of ‘making things nice’, possibility of unhappiness.
- - Reductio ad absurdum – assuming a claim for the
sake of argument to derive an outcome – take an idea and follow it through no
matter what – but researched and already existing – like making a toaster from
scratch
