design fiction @ shift 2008

Design Fiction

Julian BleeckerShift 2008Lisbon, PortugalOctober 16, 2008

Some thoughts about design as something that can shape the future, bring about change, craft new sorts of

habitable worlds.

Design Fiction

Hello.

My name is Julian Bleecker.

My talk title is something like "Design Fiction." The topic is some preliminary thoughts on the relationship between design, the future and science-fiction.

What I am presenting is an argument for considering design as a kind of story-telling practice, crafting material visions of different kinds of possible worlds and through those visions doing more than presenting an inert, lifeless object.

Rather, design can turn ideas into material, but also insert that material into a larger setting with broader social contexts and consequences, and through that create a compelling story about a possible future.

In this way, the design object becomes an important property of the world. And its this notion of a property in a larger narrative-based context that I will ultimately highlight in this talk. A prop, to borrow from film and theater production — that helps move a story forward.

Design's various ways of articulating ideas in material to create social objects and experiences can be seen as a kind of practice that is in some ways similar to creating expressions of meaning that become material in some fashion, depending of course on the kind of material

A “Conversation” around some work by David A. Kirby on what he calls “diegetic prototypes” in science-fiction

film and my own interest in creating compelling prototypes.

Design Fiction

Presentation Schema1. Representations of the Future

2. Relating the Future and the Present3. Props and Prototypes

1. Representations of the Future

How do we imagine what can come to be?What are the ways the future will be and how does that

shape what we consider reasonable, possible futures?

3 Representations of the Future...and

2.5 Provocative Quotes to go along with them.

Quote One.

“You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the

existing model obsolete.” - R. Buckminster Fuller

Quote One (and it’s diagram).

“You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the

existing model obsolete.” - R. Buckminster Fuller

Linear Representation of the Future

Quote Two.

“As I’ve said many times, the future is here. It’s just not evenly distributed.” - William Gibson

“As I’ve said many times, the future is here. It’s just not evenly distributed.” - WG

Quote Two (and its diagram)

“As I’ve said many times, the future is here. It’s just not evenly distributed.” - William Gibson

Sandwich Spread Representation of the Future

Quote Two and a half..kinda

“...” - Bruno Latour

Quote Two and a half (and a diagram).

“...” - Bruno Latour

The 3D Linkages of

Human/Non-Human

Collectives Representation of the Future

3D Representation of the future, lots of vectors and linkages between many other worlds, all of our imaginations and materializations of our beliefs and models of the world.

Recap..

Linear Representation of the Future

The “Future Spread Unevenly” Future

A planar representation of the future, it exists in different places simultaneously and you can smear it about to get it evenly distributed, but it is lumpy in bits and doesn’t get to everyone evenly. A planar representation of the future, it exists in different places simultaneously and you can smear it about to get it evenly distributed, but it is lumpy in bits and doesn’t get to everyone evenly.

A Messy Network of “Conversations” Amongst Humans and Non-Humans

A spherical representation of the future, collections/collectives of conversations & objects, human/non-human agents. There are many futures, many possible inhabited worlds. A representation that consists of complex, messy knots/collectives/imbroglios. Some collectives are better at maintaining themselves. They’ve got strong objects with lots of attention and adhesion. They have lots of idea-mass that draws other conversations and objects towards them.

“Collectives” That Contain Relevant Props, Participants, “Issues”, Matters-of-Concern.

Collectives consisting of conversations, objects, humans, scientists, film-makers, matters-of-concern (not matters-of-fact).. the most speculative representation here

The Future Is Messy...It’s Also “Hand Made.”

I’m postulating this particular representation of the future because I’ve learned that neither the linear, nor the sandwich spread model work particularly well. Things are always multiple and rather messy; history has taught us this much at least. And we make it, through ideas and conversations and prototype objects; it’s not offered to us from up on high. It’s not a graph or a sandwich spread.

What Are Ways In Which The Future Is “Hand Made”?

How is it hand made? Science Fiction for one. An important genre for imagining the future, or other kinds of worlds.

For example: How is the “Minority Report Interface” Claimed? Who Stakes Out This Technology? What Is A Simple Example of the

Minority Report “Collective”

David A. Kirby describes this in a forthcoming essay. In the meantime..let’s check in with Google..

Blurry lines between the sci-fi props and research prototypes

“The Film”

Right alongside of “Science”

“Turtle-necked Jeff Hahn”Presenting at TED 2006!

Whole bunch of links to people who claim “minority report interface” as researchers, film

consultants, prior-art, etc.

“Destination Moon”

How William Shatner Changed The World

Jurassic Park

More blurry sci-fi science

Realistic dinosaurs as a special-effect, produced to be visually compelling as a “prop” to help tell a story more compelling than a

dowdy documentary.

More blurry sci-fi science

More blurry sci-fi science

Wow..

Okay, but..So what?

Why does this all matter? The relationship between ideas and their materialization? Hollywood? Stories? Science-fiction?

Design Aspires.

We have aspirations for creating particular kinds of habitable future worlds. What I mean is that there are specific visions of a future, or aspirations for changing some aspect of the world in which we live. And what I am trying to work through here are the ways to connect those aspirations, and those ideas and realize them in a variety of forms.

Blur The Boundary Between “Science-Fact” and “Science-Fiction”

Through Design.

Think of Prototyping As Prop-Making For A Different Kind

of (Near Future) World.

3. Props & Prototypes

Let’s look quickly at two kinds of prototypes

1. Prototypes in their canonical form.2. Diegetic Prototypes

3. Props & Prototypes

Canonical Prototypes. Functionality.

Canonical Prototypes. Functionality.

Canonical Prototypes. Fit and Mechanics.

Diegetic Prototypes (“Props”)

Space may be the final frontier but it’s made in a Hollywood basement. - Red Hot Chili Peppers, “Californication,” 1999 

Diegetic Prototypes (“Props”)

"..cinematic depictions of future technologies are actually “diegetic prototypes” that demonstrate to large public audiences a technology’s need, benevolence, and viability. I show how diegetic prototypes have a major rhetorical advantage over true prototypes: in the diegesis these technologies exist as “real” objects that function properly and which people actually use."David A. Kirby, “The Future Is Now: Diegetic Prototypes, and the Cinematic Creation of the Future” (pre-pub)

"..cinematic depictions of future technologies are actually “diegetic prototypes” that demonstrate to large public audiences a technology’s need, benevolence, and viability. I show how diegetic prototypes have a major rhetorical advantage over true prototypes: in the [film] these technologies exist as “real” objects that function properly and which people actually use."David A. Kirby, “The Future Is Now: Diegetic Prototypes, and the Cinematic Creation of the Future”

Diegetic Prototypes (“Props”)

Diegetic Prototypes (“Props”)

"..cinematic depictions of future technologies are actually “diegetic prototypes” that demonstrate to large public audiences a technology’s need, benevolence, and viability. I show how diegetic prototypes have a major rhetorical advantage over true prototypes: in the diegesis these technologies exist as “real” objects that function properly and which people actually use."David A. Kirby, “The Future Is Now: Diegetic Prototypes, and the Cinematic Creation of the Future”

Wow. Stories matter when designing the future. Maybe even more than the “real thing” in terms of their ability to flash-bang the imagination of real people. Ideas are more powerful than a crappy product that aspires to the idea.

Think of design as prop-making for the near future. Design makes objects (non-humans) around which stories/conversations ensure, and imaginary

worlds come into being.

Props & Prototypes

Prototypes/Props are Idea-MassOffer ways of telling stories and crafting adhesion to these collectives of ideas and conversations through an object. Props and prototypes provide

the seeds for evolving conversation-collectives.They behave as constitutive elements for the collectives/knots/embroglios — the collectives need material props of some sort, human/non-human

elements to create idea-mass, to collect more attention.

Prototypes/Props are Idea-Mass

Design can also be a kind of fiction making; design-fiction.

Thanks.

julian at nearfuturelaboratory dot cjulian dot bleecker at nokia dot c