Speculative Everything: Design, Fiction, and Social Dreaming - - PowerPoint PPT Presentation

Dunne & Raby

Speculative Everything: 
 Design, Fiction, and 
 Social Dreaming

• Dreams seem to be downgraded to hopes, 


and design is seen as a problem-solving practice.


• Start with “what if”… This is the bit we’re interested in.

Not in trying to predict the future but in using design to

• pen up all sorts of possibilities that can be discussed,

debated, and used to collectively define a preferable future.


• We are not talking about a space for experimenting with

how things are now, making them better or different, but about other possibilities altogether. [...] It deals, by definition, with unreality.


• Ideals are not measured by whether they conform to

reality; reality is judged by whether it lives up to ideals. [...] The ideal is an ideational construct contradictory in itself and in contradiction with reality, but it has an irresistible

• power. The ideal is a practical fiction.

Beyond Radical Design

Speculative Everything: 
 Design, Fiction, and 
 Social Dreaming

A Taxonomy of Futures

Speculative Everything: 
 Design, Fiction, and 
 Social Dreaming

A Taxonomy of Futures

Speculative Everything: 
 Design, Fiction, and 
 Social Dreaming

• Probable: 


What is likely to happen, unless there is extreme

• upheaval. This is where most designers operate.
• Plausible:


The space of planning and foresight, of what could

• happen. Not prediction but exploring alternatives.

• Possible:


Making links between today’s world and the suggested

• ne. There is a path from where we are today to where

we are in the scenario. A believable series of events that leeds to the new scenario is necessary. Beyond this lies fantasy…


• Preferable: Determined by government and industry.

• Critique is not necessarily negative; it can also be a

gentle refusal, a turning away from what exists, a longing, wishful thinking, a desire, and even a dream. 
 An alternative as a compass.


• Critical design gets confused with commentary. 


All good critical design offers an alternative to how things

• are. [...] Critical design uses commentary but it is only one

layer of many.


• A key feature is how well it simultaneously sits in this

world, the here-and-now, while belonging to another 
 yet-to-exist one.


• Critical design, by generating alternatives, can help

people construct compasses rather than maps for navigating new sets of values.


Design as Critique

Speculative Everything: 
 Design, Fiction, and 
 Social Dreaming

• Divided in 4 discussion groups

• A group can work on several group (max. 3 students)

and/or individual projects

• The group works as a reflection panel, all projects are

reflected upon by the whole group


Assignment

Speculative Everything: 
 Design, Fiction, and 
 Social Dreaming

A Mehdi Ahidar Eva Bavré Charlotte Fraeye Zoë Pecqueux Ayla Vermeulen Naomi Greenstein Amélie Verleene Eva De Bodt B Lyra Oey Sébastien Bovie Arno Huygens Jordy Philips Mirthe Vermunicht Stacy Suy Lene Verschaeren C Marie Van Biervliet Beau Deneef Laura Martens Zaza Bauwens Charlotte Decoster Stef Van Oevelen Elisa Wij Stefan Martin Peluso D Luna Vermeire Sóldís Finnbogadóttir Teodora Oïta Lore De Schutter Victor Geldhof Myrthe Van Rompaey Margot De Grave Loyson