Speculative and Critical Design: Futures and Imaginings from the margins, Fall 2017

Deepa Butoliya

Published in

Post Normal Design-Post Speculative Critical Design

11 min readAug 29, 2017

DES 51878 / DES 51478
T/Th 11:300–1:20
Location: MM 121, School of Design

Image: Artist Rory Wakemup wearing stars wars inspired native american self creations

Instructor: Deepa Butoliya (dbutoliy@andrew.cmu.edu)
Office MM 207a Office Hours: By appointment

Readings are available on the box, Syllabus will be updated regularly.

Introduction to the course

Welcome to the Speculative and Critical Design class !!! This is a part seminar part practice experimental course that helps students to develop critical perspective towards the “normals” they are exposed by the dominant discourse of design. We will use the term SCD for Speculative and Critical Design henceforth.

SCD helps us question the role objects and systems play in our everyday life, not taking into account what everyday life means for people in different cultural and socioeconomic conditions. The objects and systems shown in such speculations are often narrow in their outreach and even speculations are limited or too focused on narratives of a privileged western world. They fail to capture the disparities of the human condition prevalent in large parts of the world. In this regard, the dominant practice of speculative and critical design, limits perception of the general masses rather than pushing boundaries of the field. SCD, if done as conventionally prescribed, is rarely liberating and often so interwoven with science and technology that it is not an appropriate tool for disrupting the social injustice and dominant narratives about the futures.

For this class the students will create SCD projects that consider the implications of their speculations on everyday lives of people including those who suffer the consequences for producing those artifacts.

The students will engage with the status quo in the field of speculative and critical design and also the criticisms of the field of SCD from a decolonial perspective. We will engage with parallel fields and the key terms and read and discuss the key players and emerging voices in the field of SCD.

The students will engage with SCD artifacts through essays that question and address contemporary problems associated with and as a result of white privilege, climate change, intersectional perspectives, racism, imperialism, neoliberalism, etc.

The students will gain an understanding of SCD concepts that are developed in the framework of post critical design and post normal design, through which the instructor intends to punctuate the speculative and critical design practice and make it a plural, inclusive, action oriented field of design practice to represent the voice of the underrepresented communities at margins.

The key takeaway is to develop a critical sensibility towards design and have a pluriversal approach towards methods of Speculative Design, Critical Design and Design futures by developing alternative futures for the marginalized.

Participants in Sankofa City Summer School: South Side Design Fiction Workshop present their visions for the future of our neighborhood, in the form of speculative design videos and objects that imagine new possibilities for public spaces.https://graycenter.uchicago.edu/events/sankofa-city-summer-school-proposals-for-our-future-video-screening-community-conversation-reception

Course Overview

The SCD Course, as the name suggests, is structured around understanding the field of SCD, its history, scope, criticism and applications. This course is structured around the following broader topics:

Design Criticism
Post Critical
SCD from beyond the Angloeuropean sphere (decolonial)
Feminist Perspective of SCD
Assembling publics
Post Normal Design
Pluriversal Approaches in Design
Critical Jugaad
Futures and Fictions of the Global South

We will be engaging with these topics through different mediums such as films, design projects, workshops, essays and published papers from international sources.

The students will design and develop artifacts based on the understanding developed during the course and by reflecting on their personal value systems.

The class will culminate into an exhibition open to public which may or may not be in the conventional gallery format. Though as a challenge we will aim to take the discourse beyond the walls of classroom and the gallery.

Class Expectations

Being on time is essential as time is short and there is a lot to cover, explore and create. However, there are unexpected incidents that happen, so please try to inform as soon as possible about a possible delay and discuss beforehand if you are going to miss the class
Participation is very important for this class as it is one and the only way to understand yourself in the face of material discussed in the class. 20% of your grade is on participation.
Reading should be taken seriously and the first quarter of the class cannot move forward without reading the material provided. The material is mostly visual yet has some textual information that needs to be processed before class discussion.
Class assignments are expected to be turned in as per the required deadline and in the required format.

Students are expected to be resourceful in terms of accessing facilities for making projects. Some help will be available, but cannot be promised.

Grading

Attendance- 10%
Discussion, and Participation- 20%
Three reflective/critical essays through blog posts (500 words)- 10% each
one midterm design project- 10%
Final Project- 30%

Three unexcused absences will result in drop of a letter grade and five or more unexcused absences will result in failure of the course.

Please take care of yourself, don’t plagiarize, be respectful and kind to everyone around you. Have a great semester !!!!!

Course Structure

(Please note that this would be updated regularly and revised as per availability of the guest speakers and workshop conductors)

Week 1

**Tuesday, Aug 29: Introductions**

Introducing the course, setting expectations, syllabus overview. What is SCD?

Recommended books:

Critical Design in Context History, Theory, and Practices by Matt Malpass https://www.bloomsbury.com/us/critical-design-in-context-9781472575197/
Speculative Everything: Design, Fiction and Social Dreaming by Anthony Dunne and Fiona Raby https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/speculative-everything

To Read for next class:

Dunne and Raby’s projects
http://dvk.com.hr/interakcije/2015/05/12/introduction-to-speculative-design-practice-eutropia-a-case-study/
Dunne, Anthony and Raby, Fiona. 2013. Chaps 1, 2 and 3, Speculative Everything: design, fiction and social dreaming. MIT Press.(find on BOX)
Malpass, Matt. 2013. Between Wit and Reason: Defining Associative, Speculative, and Critical Design in Practice in Design Culture, Vol. 5, Issue 3, pp 333–356

further Suggested readings

Chapter 3 and 5 of Hertzian Tales by Anthony Dunne(find on BOX)
Design Noir(find on BOX)

Thursday, Aug 31: Terminologies

Discussions on readings, terminology and what’s the difference Speculative Design, Critical Design, Design Criticism, Design Fictions, Design Futures.

Projects Discussed:

Smell+ by James Auger, 2009
Carnivorous Domestic Entertainment Robots by Auger+Louizieu, 2009
The Continuous Monument by Superstudio, 1970
Surveillance Chandelier(2011) by Humans Since 1982
Ethical Things(2015) by Automato Farm
Sousveillance by Steve Mann
Audio Tooth Implant by Auger and Loizeau
The No Phone
Prayer Companion by Interaction Research Studio, Goldsmiths

To Read for next class:

Sterling, Bruce. 2009. Design Fiction in Interactions 16 (3), pp. 20–24.
Bleecker, Julian. 2009. Design fiction: A short essay on design, science, fact and fiction, Near Future Laboratory, Los Angeles, CA
https://medium.com/design-fictions/an-ikea-catalog-from-the-near-future-e293938148bc

Week 2

Tuesday, Sep 5: Design Fictions

Class viewing of Black Mirror Season 3, Episode 1 — “Nosedive”+Short Whiteboard Exercise (10 min Design Fiction sprint)

Suggested readings for next class:

Projects and practices

Superflux - Translating Future Uncertainty into Present Day Choices.

At the end of April, I gave the opening talk at the TED 2017 conference 'The Future You' in Vancouver. Today, I am…

superflux.in

Design Fiction Theory

medium.com

Tomorrow's Thoughts Today

Edit description

www.tomorrowsthoughtstoday.com

Microsoft vision Videos

Thursday, Sep 7: Workshop: Design Fictions

Guest: Ahmed Ansari https://ahmedansari.com/

topics covered:

Design criticism
Victor Papanek’s perspective
OLPC critique
http://designobserver.com/feature/humanitarian-design-vs-design-imperialism-debate-summary/14498
https://www.moma.org/interactives/exhibitions/2013/designandviolence/republic-of-salivation-michael-burton-and-michiko-nitta/
Decolonising Design
Concept of the Artificial: Clive Dilnot, Peter Sloterdijk, Watsuji Tetsuro, Tony Fry.

Blog Post 1- document the workshop experience and results(500 words) Make a medium page, take pictures and upload. Due midnight before class next Tuesday. Sep 12

To read for next class:

Tonkinwise, C. (2015) Just Design: Being Dogmatic about Defining Speculative Critical Design Future Fiction Medium. [Available Online at https://medium.com/@camerontw/just-design-b1f97cb3996f]
Bardzell, Jeffrey and Shaowen Bardzell. 2013. “What Is “Critical” About Critical Design?”. Proceedings Of The SIGCHI Conference On Human Factors In Computing Systems — CHI ’13. Association for Computing Machinery (ACM). doi:10.1145/2470654.2466451.

further suggested readings:

Bardzell, Jeffrey, Shaowen Bardzell, and Erik Stolterman. 2014. “Reading Critical Designs”. Proceedings Of The 32Nd Annual ACM Conference On Human Factors In Computing Systems — CHI ’14. Association for Computing Machinery (ACM). doi:10.1145/2556288.2557137.

Week 3

Tuesday, Sep 12: Critical perspectives of SCD

Discussion on readings, examples

To Read

Tonkinwise, Cameron. 2014. How We Intend to Future: Review of Anthony Dunne and Fiona Raby, Speculative Everything: Design, Fiction, and Social Dreaming, in Design Philosophy Papers, Vol. 12, No 2.
“What SCD Is As Opposed To Could/Should Be”. 2016. Academia.Edu. Accessed September 26 2016. https://www.academia.edu/21887979/What_SCD_Is_as_opposed_to_Could_Should_be
Privilege and Oppression: Towards a Feminist Speculative Design by Luiza Prado

Thursday, Sep 14: Decolonial SCD, Post Critical Approach

Lecture, example, guest TBD, Viewing Examples + short whiteboard exercise

suggested reading:

Critical or Post Critical by Mark Jarzombek
Article in Architectural Theory Review 7(1):149–151 · July 2009 DOI: 10.1080/13264820209478451
www.cd-cf.org/articles/post-critical-again/

https://medium.com/a-parede/cheat-sheet-for-a-non-or-less-colonialist-speculative-design-9a6b4ae3c465
https://medium.com/@mattkiem/is-a-decolonial-scd-possible-30db8675b82a

Projects discussed:

Agi Haines designer

Agi Haines, speculative designer's website showing works and upcoming news

www.agihaines.com

LAURA FORLANO

by Laura Forlano and Megan Halpern "The further ahead in time we want to forecast, the further back in time we should…

lauraforlano.org

Speculative design: A design niche or a new tool for government innovation?

Throughout the 20th century the definition of design and design methodologies has evolved beyond just products and…

www.nesta.org.uk

Republic of Salivation (Michael Burton and Michiko Nitta)

From the curators: Designers Michiko Nitta and Michael Burton often work from a conceptual perspective-meaning that…

www.moma.org

http://www.core77designawards.com/2014/recipients/whereabouts/

A protestor wears a homemade gas mask in Venezuela 2017 Source: cnbc

Design Assignment #1 :
City hunting for local unaware SCD + blogpost on the context, reference to text, observations, photos, interviews. Due-Sep 26 Design a provocation for this context.(Can do in teams of 2)

Week 4

Tuesday, Sep 19: Class Project (No class)

Finding examples of SCD in the city

Artwork titled Wild Animal left anonymously on sidewalk Pittsburgh. Source: Pittsburgh Orbit

Thursday, Sep 21: Class Project (No class)

Work on documenting and presenting + blog post entry

Student Response: