What if?
Friday, December 10, 2010 at 06:26AM WHAT IF...insects could diagnose illness? WHAT IF...clouds were modified to snow ice cream? WHAT IF... we lived in a society where our every thought was public?
These are just some of the questions asked in the current exhibition at Science Gallery which probes the space between reality and the impossible and where designers meet scientists to explore the future. IF I was in London I would be attending this exhibition as it's curated by my tutors from the RCA, Anthony Dunne and Fiona Raby.
Anthony and Fiona are know in the design world as the grand masters of creating "Design Fictions". So what exactly is design fictions? It is a kind of storytelling practice as a way of articulating ideas where you craft material visions of different kinds of possible worlds. Through this practice one bridges imagination and materialization by modelling, crafting things, telling stories through objects, which are conversationalist pieces in a very real sense. These stories may appear real and legible, yet that are also speculating and extrapolating, or offering some sort of reflection on how things are, and how they might become something else.
Julian Bleecker has just published an essay entitled Design Fiction: A Short Essay on Design, Science, Fact and Fiction. Its available at The Near Future Laboratory's website. I'm also keen to read the book "NonObject" Design Fiction. Experience centered design philosophy that explores innovation through design beyond physical boundaries. (should be published in early 2010). In Julian's article he writes about Anthony Dunne's call for mass speculation (in political science, genetics, ethics, economics, pretty much every discipline). Anthony and Fiona taught us that "Today we don't just need solutions, we also need dreams." He is right—designers that are too polite to take chances and postulate wild hypotheses are doomed to simply churn out next year's model. As Julian notes, Dunne's idealized designer functions kind of similar to a science-fiction author, an individual engaged in a projective practice that aspires to produce novelty and innovation rather than style.
Storytelling matters when designing the future even more than the real thing in terms of their ability to inspire the imagination of people. Ideas are more powerful than a crappy product that aspires to the idea. I label myself as a designer and a storyteller because I see my role as a designer is to share my stories. I'm constantly developing my dreams of "how it could be" into a full story with real life people or objects. A moving story rings true at every level, your more likely to remember a story than a whole page of facts as story's are multi-dimensial, they embody us in space, time, values and emotions, they can reveal aspects of ourselves that are sometimes invisible.
Story telling is fundamental to what it is to be human. To be a person is to have a story to tell. Every one of us tells stories, every day; story-telling is not something that only "real authors" or "real screenwriters" or "real designer" can do. Every day we make up stories about the things that happen to us, and tell them to our family and friends.
I will write more about storytelling but for now lets experience some stories.
WHAT IF...Data from our banker, doctor and therapist determined when we should conceive?
by Revital Cohen
http://www.revitalcohen.com/
The promises posed by new reproductive technologies such as IVF, test tube babies and egg freezing, are blurring perceptions of the reproductive cycle amongst women, and consequently, the age of conception is constantly being challenged.
The female body clock relies on moonlight to regulate the menstrual cycle. The use of artificial light and contraceptive hormones, along with the growing pressure to develop a career, are distorting the body's reproductive signals. The artificial biological clock compensates for this increasingly lost instinct.
This object acts as constant reminder of the temporary and fragile nature of fertility. Given to a woman by her parents or partner, it reacts to information from her doctor, therapist and bank manager via an online service. When she is physically, mentally and financially ready to conceive the object awakes, seeking her attention.
WHAT IF...Human tissue could be used to make objects?
by Tobie Kerridge/Nikki Stott/Ian Thompson
http://www.biojewellery.com
Bone tissue cultivated outside a patient's body will soon be used in reconstructive surgery. As the bioscience behind this application develops, the promise of the technology provokes curiosity and speculation about alternative uses. Biojewellery explores such an alternative, providing couples with a symbol of their love.
Biomedical engineers, designers and clinicians set out to create unique biojewellery rings for couples. Bone tissue was cultured in a hospital laboratory, using cells from chips of bone donated by the couples during wisdom tooth extractions. The bone was combined with silver to create the rings.
Future Farm reflects the current body farm industry of people in severe deprivation using their bodies for income including selling hair, kidneys or incubating other people’s babies. The project focuses on new scientific and technological discoveries that radically change the perceptions of our bodies and extend the possibilities of their exploitation for industry. With the promises of stem cell technology to create replacement organs and even sperm from adipose fat tissue, Future Farm presents a vision of this where people use their body to produce and sell adult stem cells, to incubate pharmaceutical products, alongside hosting clinical trials.
WHAT IF...We accept co-evolution with bacteria, microbes and parasites as a healthy option?
by Michael Burton
For every one human cell in your body there are ten nonhuman cells - bacteria, viruses, fungi and other microbes - living inside and on you. They are vital to many of your daily functions.
The Race responds to this outcome and human metagenomic research to reconsider our approach to healthcare as a co-evolved organism and conglomeration of vital bacteria, microbes and parasites. The project scrutinizes our inadvertent creation of superbugs like mRSA through the misuse of antibiotics to offer alternative enhancements, new behaviors and objects for a more symbiotic future as an extraordinary balanced ecosystem.
Smell has been until recently a neglected sense. The current low status of smell is a result of the re-evaluation of the senses by philosophers and scientists of the 18th and 19th centuries. Smell was considered lower order, primitive, savage and bestial. This project explores the human experiential potential of the sense of smell, applying contemporary scientific research in a range of domestic and social contexts. The design concept acknowledges that smell is a complicated sense requiring a level of control for both input and output emissions. This control is then applied to several situations exploring the possibilities and potential of smell as raw information.
Evidence Dolls consists of one hundred plastic dolls used to provoke discussion amongst a group of young single women about the impact of genetic technology on their lifestyle. How will dating change when DNA analysis can reveal the presence of undesirable genes?
Evidence Dolls come in three versions based on penis size (small, medium and large). A black indelible marker is provided to note down any characteristics on the dolls body. Hair, toenail clippings, saliva, and sperm can be stored in the penis drawer.
by Chris Woebken
Rather than focusing on the current development of nanotechnology, such as creating lighter and stronger materials, this project focuses on exploring its potential further, creating more manipulative prototypes such as organic electronics.
What does organic computing look like and how will our relationship with these products change? Can organic electronics with biosensors open up new possibilities for sensual and poetic designs?
Seeds contain material and information needed to grow organisms as well as algorithms for device networking. Using seeds as a simulation for smart dust, it allows one to easily visualize new interactions such as breaking, sharing, throwing away and mining data. These new interactions not only generate new behaviors but also redefine existing stereotypical electronic products.
WHAT IF...We lived in a society where our every thought was public?
by Bernhard Hopfengärtner, Gunnar Green
Extra Room exists in an imaginary world where neuroimaging is used to ‘read' the human mind. As the mind becomes transparent in this world a new need for protective self discipline emerges. The Extra Room, is built into the basement of a multi storey building, where it is shared by the building's inhabitants. Utilising effects of sensory deprivation and methods used by the military to break someone down, this room enables subjects to adjust their thinking and beliefs.
WHAT IF... We had to rent trees to offset our carbon footprint?
by Dot Samsen
http://www.dotmancando.info
Carbon credit brings the ‘convenience' back to the ‘inconvenient truth'. Global warming has been driven by capitalism. Now we are trying to solve global warming through capitalism. Is this possible? From an ecological perspective, CO2 is a by-product of the living, either directly or indirectly. From the economic perspective, CO2 may become the world's largest commodity market. What do we consider the price of our own by-products? This project aims to criticize the carbon trading system as well as raise awareness of how good we are at destroying the planet.
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