Pub Date : 2021-07-22DOI: 10.46467/TDD37.2021.60-91
Elisa Cuesta Fernández, María Victoria De la Torre Luque, Pedro Arnanz Coll
Humans are part of an interlinked world crossed by overlapping flows: substances, beings and information. The major global events that have unfolded throughout 2020 have profoundly altered the social system, revealing deep structural weak spots, and pushed its resilience to the limit, nearly causing its suffocation. This context has called into question our anthropocentric mindset and has led us to critically revise how we think about the (eco)systems we are part of, how we act within them, what is our agency to drive meaningful shifts, and with which tools we can do so. For nine months during which life and art became part of a single space, we, three artists and designers in collaboration with a diverse team of researchers, explored the way in which our individual and collective agency is affected by how close – both emotionally and physically – we feel to others, whether human or not. By navigating through art and design approaches, we imagined perspectives to defy our dualist, linear and Cartesian point of view to question how, as our system regains its speed, we can move towards a more connected sense of being. A systemic thinking toolkit, dozens of conversations, a breathing body, a poem and a visual essay have unfolded during this time, giving shape to the project A.I.R. Air[noun, uncountable], the mixture of gases we breathe; air[noun, uncountable], the space that circulates everything; but also A.I.R., an acronym for “artists in residency”, or more accurately, artists in remoteness. Air that we have lacked too often during these nine months. Air that can be the deepest kind of embrace, in these times pierced by radical forms of isolation. We start weaving our ideas around the notions of systems, agency and closeness by asking: how close do you feel?
{"title":"A.I.R.: From Radical Individuality to Connected Subjectivity","authors":"Elisa Cuesta Fernández, María Victoria De la Torre Luque, Pedro Arnanz Coll","doi":"10.46467/TDD37.2021.60-91","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.46467/TDD37.2021.60-91","url":null,"abstract":"Humans are part of an interlinked world crossed by overlapping flows: substances, beings and information. The major global events that have unfolded throughout 2020 have profoundly altered the social system, revealing deep structural weak spots, and pushed its resilience to the limit, nearly causing its suffocation. This context has called into question our anthropocentric mindset and has led us to critically revise how we think about the (eco)systems we are part of, how we act within them, what is our agency to drive meaningful shifts, and with which tools we can do so. \u0000For nine months during which life and art became part of a single space, we, three artists and designers in collaboration with a diverse team of researchers, explored the way in which our individual and collective agency is affected by how close – both emotionally and physically – we feel to others, whether human or not. By navigating through art and design approaches, we imagined perspectives to defy our dualist, linear and Cartesian point of view to question how, as our system regains its speed, we can move towards a more connected sense of being. \u0000A systemic thinking toolkit, dozens of conversations, a breathing body, a poem and a visual essay have unfolded during this time, giving shape to the project A.I.R. Air[noun, uncountable], the mixture of gases we breathe; air[noun, uncountable], the space that circulates everything; but also A.I.R., an acronym for “artists in residency”, or more accurately, artists in remoteness. Air that we have lacked too often during these nine months. Air that can be the deepest kind of embrace, in these times pierced by radical forms of isolation. \u0000We start weaving our ideas around the notions of systems, agency and closeness by asking: how close do you feel?","PeriodicalId":34368,"journal":{"name":"Temes de Disseny","volume":"11 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-07-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"86539215","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2021-07-22DOI: 10.46467/TDD37.2021.132-156
Saul Pandelakis
British television has recently acquired a reputation for producing challenging dystopian visions of the future. While Black Mirror casts a disenchanted look on our experiences, Years and Years lacks cynicism and, in that regard, holds interesting lessons for designers. While the issues commented on by the British fictional series are also global in scale and scope (nuclear bombing, political tensions in the EU, energy crisis), the series displays a rare creativity in its depiction of future objects and innovations. The inventions depicted can be truly groundbreaking, long awaited or dysfunctional. While the series examines these objects and dispositifs, it never leans towards a set position, be it discouraged Luddism or happy-go-lucky celebration. Because it refuses to embrace or reject technology, it gives space to a rich examination of the possible design products of the future. This essay examines three selected objects (a meal tray, a vocal AI and a drone) which potentially condense a great deal of the current criticism of technology. None of the analysed objects are incredible in form or function; in fact, they have all been the subject of previous fiction matter. These objects will be analysed in terms of dispositifs and usage, but also as temporal devices whose functionality and aesthetics change with or against the tide. The concept of disappearance will be key as all three objects purport to replace jobs and the workers who hold such positions. These technological products all enact an erasure of work and of the working-class body, if they are understood as potential products available in a near future. As narrative devices, however, they also function as potent critical agents, underlying potential modes of resistance in our present.
{"title":"Disappearing Bodies, Disappearing Objects: What Years and Years Can Teach Us About Design","authors":"Saul Pandelakis","doi":"10.46467/TDD37.2021.132-156","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.46467/TDD37.2021.132-156","url":null,"abstract":"British television has recently acquired a reputation for producing challenging dystopian visions of the future. While Black Mirror casts a disenchanted look on our experiences, Years and Years lacks cynicism and, in that regard, holds interesting lessons for designers. While the issues commented on by the British fictional series are also global in scale and scope (nuclear bombing, political tensions in the EU, energy crisis), the series displays a rare creativity in its depiction of future objects and innovations. The inventions depicted can be truly groundbreaking, long awaited or dysfunctional. While the series examines these objects and dispositifs, it never leans towards a set position, be it discouraged Luddism or happy-go-lucky celebration. Because it refuses to embrace or reject technology, it gives space to a rich examination of the possible design products of the future. This essay examines three selected objects (a meal tray, a vocal AI and a drone) which potentially condense a great deal of the current criticism of technology. None of the analysed objects are incredible in form or function; in fact, they have all been the subject of previous fiction matter. These objects will be analysed in terms of dispositifs and usage, but also as temporal devices whose functionality and aesthetics change with or against the tide. The concept of disappearance will be key as all three objects purport to replace jobs and the workers who hold such positions. These technological products all enact an erasure of work and of the working-class body, if they are understood as potential products available in a near future. As narrative devices, however, they also function as potent critical agents, underlying potential modes of resistance in our present.","PeriodicalId":34368,"journal":{"name":"Temes de Disseny","volume":"132 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-07-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"79655442","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2021-07-22DOI: 10.46467/TDD37.2021.226-243
Alejandra López Gabrielidis, Toni Navarro
This article addresses the increasing levels of complexity and abstraction that digital technologies produce, which generate a feeling of amazement nowadays similar to what the philosophy of art and aesthetics deemed the experience of the sublime. Through the idea of the “digital sublime”, we aim to find ways to find direction in this vertiginous world. Our intention is to research the extent to which art and design can function as mediators of scales that translate the digital sublime into concrete images that are more digestible, as well as easy to understand and perceive. We believe this is one of the challenges that these disciplines must face in our era governed by extra-human scales, both technological (the cloud, artificial intelligence, 5G, etc.) and geological (the Anthropocene and global climate change). With this in mind, we will analyse the work of several artists whose careers reflect their commitment to these issues. If we, and our bodies, are constantly translated into data, can art and design reverse meaning and make our data transform into bodies in such a way as to produce an aesthetic (sensible) experience of them? Can this help us to understand digital infrastructure and its materiality in a more intuitive and approachable way so that a body can imagine and/or visualise it? Can these actions encourage the production of collective emancipation strategies that allow us to be active agents when reconfiguring the governance and algorithmic regulations imposed on us?
{"title":"The Digital Sublime: Orientation Strategies for a Vertiginous World","authors":"Alejandra López Gabrielidis, Toni Navarro","doi":"10.46467/TDD37.2021.226-243","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.46467/TDD37.2021.226-243","url":null,"abstract":"This article addresses the increasing levels of complexity and abstraction that digital technologies produce, which generate a feeling of amazement nowadays similar to what the philosophy of art and aesthetics deemed the experience of the sublime. Through the idea of the “digital sublime”, we aim to find ways to find direction in this vertiginous world. Our intention is to research the extent to which art and design can function as mediators of scales that translate the digital sublime into concrete images that are more digestible, as well as easy to understand and perceive. We believe this is one of the challenges that these disciplines must face in our era governed by extra-human scales, both technological (the cloud, artificial intelligence, 5G, etc.) and geological (the Anthropocene and global climate change). With this in mind, we will analyse the work of several artists whose careers reflect their commitment to these issues. \u0000If we, and our bodies, are constantly translated into data, can art and design reverse meaning and make our data transform into bodies in such a way as to produce an aesthetic (sensible) experience of them? Can this help us to understand digital infrastructure and its materiality in a more intuitive and approachable way so that a body can imagine and/or visualise it? Can these actions encourage the production of collective emancipation strategies that allow us to be active agents when reconfiguring the governance and algorithmic regulations imposed on us?","PeriodicalId":34368,"journal":{"name":"Temes de Disseny","volume":"1 3","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-07-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"72395620","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2020-10-01DOI: 10.46467/TDD36.2020.114-149
A. Morrison, Nina Bjørnstad, Einar Sneve Martinussen, B. Johansen, Bastien Kerspern, Palak Dudani
As the world in which we live becomes more complex and contested, economically and politically but also in terms of rapid and long-lasting environmental change, design education faces new demands and challenges. We frame and situate these in terms of what we call “design futures literacies.” At stake in such a framing is a rethinking of design’s priorities in the context of climate change and resource use and reuse in futures that are uncertain, contingent and emergent. The article positions design as having shifted away from a techno-modernist design solutionism and to how it may engage in shaping futures through experimentation and exploration in the critical and productive engagement with techno-cultural life. These arguments are located within the prior experience of the transdisciplinary team of co-authors as well as a European level project between four leading design universities. The article takes up their first work package on the co-creation of a Lexicon for Design Futures Literacies and early experimentation towards generating resources and experience for its wider use. The article addresses the largely under articulated relations between language and design (from lexis to discourse). First, we present the development of an alphabetic, lexical semantic set and core grouping of design and futures terms. This vocabulary, drawn from a range of sources and experiences, is linked to the design of a related lexically centred card game. Second, the focus on vocabulary was extended to a section on situating lexis in cultural historical contexts, 3-dimensional haptic form giving and the language of abstraction. This was achieved via reference to a design narrative fiction experiment on emerging technologies and a historical costume annotation project as a prompt for making connections between items from the lexicon and modelling abstract forms in clay. Third, in collaboration with a government ministry and a design council, students developed four future digital urban living scenarios with trust as their central focus. “Languaging” the future was embodied in physical scenarios open to the public, connected to a professional seminar and to international research events where verbal descriptions, explanations and reflections were voiced by the students alongside their educator-researcher. The article closes with suggestions that there is further opportunity for attention to lexis and multimodal discourse modes in shaping design futures literacies, within and across the project but also in practice, in policy and for and as design pedagogy.
{"title":"Lexicons, Literacies and Design Futures","authors":"A. Morrison, Nina Bjørnstad, Einar Sneve Martinussen, B. Johansen, Bastien Kerspern, Palak Dudani","doi":"10.46467/TDD36.2020.114-149","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.46467/TDD36.2020.114-149","url":null,"abstract":"As the world in which we live becomes more complex and contested, economically and politically but also in terms of rapid and long-lasting environmental change, design education faces new demands and challenges. We frame and situate these in terms of what we call “design futures literacies.” At stake in such a framing is a rethinking of design’s priorities in the context of climate change and resource use and reuse in futures that are uncertain, contingent and emergent. The article positions design as having shifted away from a techno-modernist design solutionism and to how it may engage in shaping futures through experimentation and exploration in the critical and productive engagement with techno-cultural life. These arguments are located within the prior experience of the transdisciplinary team of co-authors as well as a European level project between four leading design universities. The article takes up their first work package on the co-creation of a Lexicon for Design Futures Literacies and early experimentation towards generating resources and experience for its wider use. The article addresses the largely under articulated relations between language and design (from lexis to discourse). First, we present the development of an alphabetic, lexical semantic set and core grouping of design and futures terms. This vocabulary, drawn from a range of sources and experiences, is linked to the design of a related lexically centred card game. Second, the focus on vocabulary was extended to a section on situating lexis in cultural historical contexts, 3-dimensional haptic form giving and the language of abstraction. This was achieved via reference to a design narrative fiction experiment on emerging technologies and a historical costume annotation project as a prompt for making connections between items from the lexicon and modelling abstract forms in clay. Third, in collaboration with a government ministry and a design council, students developed four future digital urban living scenarios with trust as their central focus. “Languaging” the future was embodied in physical scenarios open to the public, connected to a professional seminar and to international research events where verbal descriptions, explanations and reflections were voiced by the students alongside their educator-researcher. The article closes with suggestions that there is further opportunity for attention to lexis and multimodal discourse modes in shaping design futures literacies, within and across the project but also in practice, in policy and for and as design pedagogy.","PeriodicalId":34368,"journal":{"name":"Temes de Disseny","volume":"49 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"87272767","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2020-10-01DOI: 10.46467/TDD36.2020.70-89
Tomas Diez, O. Tomico, M. Quintero
While technology and design have progressed greatly, they have also produced imbalances that affect the way we live and work. Additionally, they have also contributed to the use of the planet’s resources to fill our homes with unnecessary devices and objects. We must de-objectify and de-colonise the way we design technologies to make for more inclusive and diverse futures. One way to do that is to recognise our shortcomings and experiment with them in a way that is productive and promotes a more peaceful coexistence among living systems. This research explores the concept and practice of identifying these shortcomings via the “Atlas of Weak Signals”. The Atlas is a tool for combatting future challenges by actively creating opportunities for design interventions to dissolve the troubling problems of our times. In order to support this claim, we present and analyse a series of projects developed over the course of a master’s programme. Specific emphasis is placed on how the Atlas of Weak Signals was generated between students and faculty as a methodology to better understand the view of the world in which we live today from the one in which we design from. The projects are mapped in relation to emerging trends in both local and global contexts and the interconnections between these trends as generators of design opportunities. To conclude, we present the lessons we learned in the form of a toolkit so other design practitioners, researchers, teachers, and students can generate their own methods and tools.
{"title":"Exploring Weak Signals to Design and Prototype for Emergent Futures","authors":"Tomas Diez, O. Tomico, M. Quintero","doi":"10.46467/TDD36.2020.70-89","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.46467/TDD36.2020.70-89","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 \u0000 \u0000While technology and design have progressed greatly, they have also produced imbalances that affect the way we live and work. Additionally, they have also contributed to the use of the planet’s resources to fill our homes with unnecessary devices and objects. We must de-objectify and de-colonise the way we design technologies to make for more inclusive and diverse futures. One way to do that is to recognise our shortcomings and experiment with them in a way that is productive and promotes a more peaceful coexistence among living systems. \u0000This research explores the concept and practice of identifying these shortcomings via the “Atlas of Weak Signals”. The Atlas is a tool for combatting future challenges by actively creating opportunities for design interventions to dissolve the troubling problems of our times. In order to support this claim, we present and analyse a series of projects developed over the course of a master’s programme. Specific emphasis is placed on how the Atlas of Weak Signals was generated between students and faculty as a methodology to better understand the view of the world in which we live today from the one in which we design from. The projects are mapped in relation to emerging trends in both local and global contexts and the interconnections between these trends as generators of design opportunities. To conclude, we present the lessons we learned in the form of a toolkit so other design practitioners, researchers, teachers, and students can generate their own methods and tools. \u0000 \u0000 \u0000","PeriodicalId":34368,"journal":{"name":"Temes de Disseny","volume":"30 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"80946736","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2020-10-01DOI: 10.46467/TDD36.2020.16-39
T. Markussen, Eva Knutz, T. Lenskjold
The aim of this paper is to contribute to a new conceptual foundation for design fiction. Much attention is dedicated to theorising how design fictions relate to our so-called actual world. This work can be seen as an attempt at securing the seriousness and legitimacy of design fiction as an approach to design research. The theory of possible worlds has proven promising in this regard. We argue, however, that a detailed understanding of design fiction is still lacking. In design fiction literature, authors often engage in critiquing techno-centric approaches while paying less attention to how design fiction has a potential to foster social change in situated actual affairs. We argue that analysis should start from the messy unfolding of the design event itself rather than from big ontological discussions of the boundaries between fiction and reality. To grasp the messiness of design fiction, we offer an interdisciplinary framework, bridging knowledge domains such as literally theory and design anthropology.
{"title":"Design Fiction as a Practice for Researching the Social","authors":"T. Markussen, Eva Knutz, T. Lenskjold","doi":"10.46467/TDD36.2020.16-39","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.46467/TDD36.2020.16-39","url":null,"abstract":"The aim of this paper is to contribute to a new conceptual foundation for design fiction. Much attention is dedicated to theorising how design fictions relate to our so-called actual world. This work can be seen as an attempt at securing the seriousness and legitimacy of design fiction as an approach to design research. The theory of possible worlds has proven promising in this regard. We argue, however, that a detailed understanding of design fiction is still lacking. In design fiction literature, authors often engage in critiquing techno-centric approaches while paying less attention to how design fiction has a potential to foster social change in situated actual affairs. We argue that analysis should start from the messy unfolding of the design event itself rather than from big ontological discussions of the boundaries between fiction and reality. To grasp the messiness of design fiction, we offer an interdisciplinary framework, bridging knowledge domains such as literally theory and design anthropology.","PeriodicalId":34368,"journal":{"name":"Temes de Disseny","volume":"13 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"84322579","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2020-10-01DOI: 10.46467/TDD36.2020.178-191
Karla Paniagua, Paulina Cornejo
This work presents the initial results from two years of Tenkuä, a participatory futures workshop created by CENTRO, a higher education institution in Mexico City specialised in creativity. This experience aims to help participants to have a better understanding of the contexts and environments where they live and to design strategies that can contribute to improving community life. The methodology of the workshop combines a foresight framework with the Right to the City approach. The preliminary results refer to the learning experience as a product of design itself and how, during the process of participatory futures, the relationship between the institution and its neighbours was transformed into an experience of participatory presents.
{"title":"Tenkuä: Designing Futures for Broken Cities","authors":"Karla Paniagua, Paulina Cornejo","doi":"10.46467/TDD36.2020.178-191","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.46467/TDD36.2020.178-191","url":null,"abstract":"This work presents the initial results from two years of Tenkuä, a participatory futures workshop created by CENTRO, a higher education institution in Mexico City specialised in creativity. This experience aims to help participants to have a better understanding of the contexts and environments where they live and to design strategies that can contribute to improving community life. The methodology of the workshop combines a foresight framework with the Right to the City approach. The preliminary results refer to the learning experience as a product of design itself and how, during the process of participatory futures, the relationship between the institution and its neighbours was transformed into an experience of participatory presents.","PeriodicalId":34368,"journal":{"name":"Temes de Disseny","volume":"16 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"78369223","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2020-10-01DOI: 10.46467/TDD36.2020.150-177
Lenneke Kuijer
This article explores design’s relation with the future by analysing a collection of exemplars from design fiction and speculative design for their potential to democratise and anticipate visions of future everyday life in design. Future visions – both implicit and explicit ones – have a realising power of their own. This is especially true for design, the products of which co-shape the lives of millions of users. Rather than calling for a “better” future vision however, this paper draws on research from the social sciences and futures studies to argue for the importance of diversifying and enriching visions of future everyday life within design. Critical design is well equipped to contribute to this objective because it questions the status quo and is relatable and actionable for designers. The paper reviews exemplars from critical design for their potential to democratise and anticipate future everyday life. To analyse their ways of engaging with future everyday life, the exemplars are positioned in the future cone model of probable, possible and preferred futures. Through this positioning, a distinction emerged between two forms of critical future engagement: alternative fictions and extrapolative fictions. Alternative fictions are explicitly positioned outside of generally expected futures, while extrapolative fictions are explicitly positioned within them. Both have their own strengths and limitations for democratising and anticipating future everyday life. Alternative fictions enrol actors as “future people” and create scenes to depict future contexts, but can also include deployments in present day contexts to explore alternative human-artefact relations. Alternative fictions tend to be accompanied by alternative design practices. Extrapolative fictions do not include deployments and rarely propose alternative design practices, but they can play an important role in highlighting the underexposed risks of mainstream design pursuits. Critical design can and should play a role in democratising and anticipating future everyday life. Alternative and extrapolative fictions can complement each other in this pursuit. Extrapolative fictions question the status quo from within and use the power of design to highlight underexposed aspects of expected futures. Alternative fictions question the status quo from without and use the power of design to creatively generate different objects that can be used to flesh out alternative ways of living and their related context. Further research is needed into how critical fictions are best integrated into mainstream design practices.
{"title":"Democratising and Anticipating Everyday Futures Through Critical Design: A Review of Exemplars","authors":"Lenneke Kuijer","doi":"10.46467/TDD36.2020.150-177","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.46467/TDD36.2020.150-177","url":null,"abstract":"This article explores design’s relation with the future by analysing a collection of exemplars from design fiction and speculative design for their potential to democratise and anticipate visions of future everyday life in design. Future visions – both implicit and explicit ones – have a realising power of their own. This is especially true for design, the products of which co-shape the lives of millions of users. Rather than calling for a “better” future vision however, this paper draws on research from the social sciences and futures studies to argue for the importance of diversifying and enriching visions of future everyday life within design. Critical design is well equipped to contribute to this objective because it questions the status quo and is relatable and actionable for designers. The paper reviews exemplars from critical design for their potential to democratise and anticipate future everyday life. \u0000To analyse their ways of engaging with future everyday life, the exemplars are positioned in the future cone model of probable, possible and preferred futures. Through this positioning, a distinction emerged between two forms of critical future engagement: alternative fictions and extrapolative fictions. Alternative fictions are explicitly positioned outside of generally expected futures, while extrapolative fictions are explicitly positioned within them. Both have their own strengths and limitations for democratising and anticipating future everyday life. \u0000Alternative fictions enrol actors as “future people” and create scenes to depict future contexts, but can also include deployments in present day contexts to explore alternative human-artefact relations. Alternative fictions tend to be accompanied by alternative design practices. Extrapolative fictions do not include deployments and rarely propose alternative design practices, but they can play an important role in highlighting the underexposed risks of mainstream design pursuits. \u0000Critical design can and should play a role in democratising and anticipating future everyday life. Alternative and extrapolative fictions can complement each other in this pursuit. Extrapolative fictions question the status quo from within and use the power of design to highlight underexposed aspects of expected futures. Alternative fictions question the status quo from without and use the power of design to creatively generate different objects that can be used to flesh out alternative ways of living and their related context. Further research is needed into how critical fictions are best integrated into mainstream design practices.","PeriodicalId":34368,"journal":{"name":"Temes de Disseny","volume":"54 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"88991741","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2020-10-01DOI: 10.46467/TDD36.2020.192-207
Ezequiel Pini
This pictorial addresses the new use of Computer Generated Imagery as a tool for contextualising and inspiring futures. Using research through design experimental methodology, these techniques allow us to create utopic spaces by embracing accidental outcomes, displaying an as yet unexplored path lacking the limitations of the real world. The resulting images prove how 3D digital imagery used in the design context can serve as a new medium for artistic self-expression, as a tool for future designs and as an instrument to raise awareness about environmental challenges. The term we have coined, Computer Generated Inspiration, embraces the freedom of experimentation and artistic expression and the goal of inspiring others through unreal collective imaginaries.
{"title":"Computer Generated Inspiration","authors":"Ezequiel Pini","doi":"10.46467/TDD36.2020.192-207","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.46467/TDD36.2020.192-207","url":null,"abstract":"This pictorial addresses the new use of Computer Generated Imagery as a tool for contextualising and inspiring futures. Using research through design experimental methodology, these techniques allow us to create utopic spaces by embracing accidental outcomes, displaying an as yet unexplored path lacking the limitations of the real world. The resulting images prove how 3D digital imagery used in the design context can serve as a new medium for artistic self-expression, as a tool for future designs and as an instrument to raise awareness about environmental challenges. The term we have coined, Computer Generated Inspiration, embraces the freedom of experimentation and artistic expression and the goal of inspiring others through unreal collective imaginaries.","PeriodicalId":34368,"journal":{"name":"Temes de Disseny","volume":"7 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"88622542","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2020-10-01DOI: 10.46467/TDD36.2020.40-69
J. Sarmiento, Gert Pasman, E. Hultink, P. Stappers
Making prototypes of fictitious artifacts has long been applied in corporations as a design-led way to envisioning the future. These techniques make use of design to explore speculative futures translating abstract questions into concrete objects and bringing the human dimension and experience into futures techniques. The design-led strategic foresight techniques follow making activities – including visual synthesis, prototyping and storytelling – and result in experimental and experiential artifacts offering concrete, hands-on and specific images of the futures. An example of these techniques is the making and sharing of concept cars, a long-standing practice in the automotive industry. These artifacts facilitate the sharing of future visions, which embody future ideas, to diverse people. Whereas corporations use these design-led strategic foresight techniques as a driver for innovation, small and medium-sized enterprises, which are the backbone of society and the global economy, have been deprived of these kinds of explorations due to their being resource intensive. To help these enterprises, we developed DIVE (design, innovation, vision and exploration) based on design-led strategic foresight techniques developed by corporations but adapted to the scale and needs of these small players. DIVE helps external designers and company representatives in making and sharing artifacts to envision the future of their company. The technique follows an analogy that invites participants to make a hole in the world as it is and descend underwater to the speculative futures and then come back to the reality. Along with this plunge into fiction, participants identify trends, create ideas about the future, and make a prototype of an artifact that is subsequently used to motivate people to talk about the company’s future and present. This artifact, the vision concept, includes ideas about the future product or service, the context and the business itself. This paper aims to evaluate DIVE as a design-led strategic foresight technique and focuses on the benefits and limitations of its application. It includes two cases that explored the future of the shopping experience for the company Solutions Group. It is a Colombian medium-sized enterprise that develops and produces point-of-purchase materials for consumer goods corporations such as Procter & Gamble. In both cases, the participants employed DIVE activities to make and share a vision concept. At the end of the cases, the DIVE outcomes were validated by three external innovation experts. DIVE proved its efficacy in supporting designers in setting future visions, prototyping vision concepts and stories and making recommendations for different time frames, and participants also learned about the strategic value of design.
{"title":"Concept Cars as Vehicles for Change in SMEs","authors":"J. Sarmiento, Gert Pasman, E. Hultink, P. Stappers","doi":"10.46467/TDD36.2020.40-69","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.46467/TDD36.2020.40-69","url":null,"abstract":"Making prototypes of fictitious artifacts has long been applied in corporations as a design-led way to envisioning the future. These techniques make use of design to explore speculative futures translating abstract questions into concrete objects and bringing the human dimension and experience into futures techniques. The design-led strategic foresight techniques follow making activities – including visual synthesis, prototyping and storytelling – and result in experimental and experiential artifacts offering concrete, hands-on and specific images of the futures. An example of these techniques is the making and sharing of concept cars, a long-standing practice in the automotive industry. These artifacts facilitate the sharing of future visions, which embody future ideas, to diverse people. \u0000Whereas corporations use these design-led strategic foresight techniques as a driver for innovation, small and medium-sized enterprises, which are the backbone of society and the global economy, have been deprived of these kinds of explorations due to their being resource intensive. \u0000To help these enterprises, we developed DIVE (design, innovation, vision and exploration) based on design-led strategic foresight techniques developed by corporations but adapted to the scale and needs of these small players. DIVE helps external designers and company representatives in making and sharing artifacts to envision the future of their company. The technique follows an analogy that invites participants to make a hole in the world as it is and descend underwater to the speculative futures and then come back to the reality. Along with this plunge into fiction, participants identify trends, create ideas about the future, and make a prototype of an artifact that is subsequently used to motivate people to talk about the company’s future and present. This artifact, the vision concept, includes ideas about the future product or service, the context and the business itself. \u0000This paper aims to evaluate DIVE as a design-led strategic foresight technique and focuses on the benefits and limitations of its application. It includes two cases that explored the future of the shopping experience for the company Solutions Group. It is a Colombian medium-sized enterprise that develops and produces point-of-purchase materials for consumer goods corporations such as Procter & Gamble. In both cases, the participants employed DIVE activities to make and share a vision concept. At the end of the cases, the DIVE outcomes were validated by three external innovation experts. \u0000DIVE proved its efficacy in supporting designers in setting future visions, prototyping vision concepts and stories and making recommendations for different time frames, and participants also learned about the strategic value of design.","PeriodicalId":34368,"journal":{"name":"Temes de Disseny","volume":"4 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"90347579","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
京公网安备 11010802042870号
京ICP备2023020795号-1
扫码关注我们
求助内容：
应助结果提醒方式：