Speculative Design and its Audience

Speculative design is a design related activity that enables the exploration of novel possibilities through the creation of functional fictions. Through the creation of fictional objects designers are able to establish compelling visions of alternate realities and speculative futures (Auger 2013), which make us challenge our assumptions about the way in which our own world is developing.

In an interview with Dezeen, Paola Antonelli, senior design curator at the New York Museum of Modern Art, expressed a growing interest in speculative design, stating that design museums should be ‘’looked at as the R&D of society’’ (Fairs, 2014). Speculative design does not exist in a scientific or artistic vacuum; it has an audience. The way this audience perceives and engages with the speculation they are presented with is a crucial factor in whether or not its designer succeeds in his or her intentions.

This essay investigates the different functions of speculative design, existing views on its purpose and the role the designer has to play. Additionally it explores the role of the - characteristics of - its audience as a focal point for the creation of design speculations.

Speculative Design and Design Fiction

There are several contiguous practices that approach design as a speculative activity, such as critical design, discursive design and design fiction. The term design fiction was first coined by Julian Bleecker (Sterling, 2013a) and is defined by science fiction author Bruce Sterling (2013a) as ‘’the deliberate use of diegetic prototypes to suspend disbelief about change’’. Diegetic prototypes can be described as cinematic props, used in combination with a narrative to make a fictional product or technology believable for an audience (Kirby, 2009). In the context of design fiction, these prototypes represent objects from an alternate or future world. In Bruce Sterling’s Venn diagram of anticonventional objects (2013b) a diegetic prototype is categorised as an object that is considered both ‘profitable’ and ‘desirable’ but not feasibly ‘buildable’.

Even though all of the practices mentioned above apply some form of fictional prototyping, speculative designers Anthony Dunne and Fiona Raby (2013, p. 100) argue that the term design fiction is limiting. They find that because the field takes much of its cues from science fiction, the focus of many design fiction projects is limited to the development of technology rather than taking into account the development of society as a whole. Dunne and Raby (2013, p. 100) also debate the ability of design fictions to criticise and raise questions about the development of technology. They therefore propose the term speculative design, which encompasses a broader spectrum of future oriented design practices.

Auger (2013) describes the subtle - yet significant - differences between practices by investigating how the different connotations embedded in semantics are interpreted by the audience. He argues that using the term ‘fiction’ implies that the designed object is inherently not real; making it possible for an audience to simply dismiss it as something that does not impact their day to day reality. Similarly, giving away the purpose of a design by using terms such as discursive, critical or fictional alters how it is perceived and valued by the viewer. Consequently, Auger (2013) also favours the use of the term ‘speculative’, as it helps suggest that the design in question is in fact something that ‘could happen’ and is therefore relevant for discussion and exploration in the public sphere.

What speculative design can do

Central to the idea of speculative design is that it provides opportunities for experimentation. It allows for an exploration of novel possibilities by removing traditional boundaries for design. Julian Bleecker (2009) argues that by operating in the space where science fact and science fiction meet one another, designers are able to imagine freely, free from demands of the market, users and other stakeholders. Auger (2013) names the absence of commercial constraints, to which design normally has to adhere, as the single most important benefit of creating speculative designs.

The practice has also been used as a form of critique. Anthony Dunne defined this space as ‘’using speculative design proposals to challenge narrow assumptions, preconceptions, and givens about the role products play in everyday life’’ (Dunne 1999). Critical design provides alternatives whilst laying bare the weaknesses of what already is (Dunne and Raby, 2013, p. 35). It does so not necessarily in a strictly negative way. It is used to make us challenge our current thinking and can even help us comprehend the world as it is now, for instance by revealing the human dimensions of an emerging technology (Revell, 2013). Next to critiquing, speculative designs are also created with the intention to elicit discourse about societal and technological developments. It is used to move these discussions from the realm of science and politics to a bigger audience (Auger, 2013). Confronted with the speculation, the audience members are provoked to question their values and beliefs and to form and discuss their own opinions.

Another application lies in constructive design research (Bardzell et al., 2012). Studying not how the world is but how it could be through the creation and exploration of potential realities is a compelling strategy to help us understand and cope with our increasingly complex world (Grand & Wiedmer, 2010).

A final, commonly used function of speculation in design is that of the corporate future vision. These have been criticised for being too ‘perfect’ and ‘glossy’ portrayals of possible futures, presented by corporations as celebrations of technology in order to excite their stakeholders (Smith, 2013). Tobias Revell (2013) argues that these future visions lack the humanity and chaos that are an essential part of everyday life.

What speculative design should do

Apart from the different motivations designers may have for practicing speculative design, several authors have also discussed its broader purpose as a means of addressing the challenges posed by the social and technological developments of our modern societies. Or as Dunne and Raby (2013, p. 34) argue, conceptual design needs to have ‘’a sort of social usefulness’’.

Bruce Sterling (2009) identifies a need for creative endeavours that are able to help us comprehend our increasingly digitalised and interconnected world. He argues that we have ‘’entered an unimagined culture’’ and that neither design nor science fiction are able to ‘’imagine effectively’’. Yet since the emergence of the internet the two disciplines have started to become intertwined (Sterling, 2009). The result functions as a means to explore the boundaries of what can possibly be imagined from within our current context.

Dunne and Raby (2013, p. 2), in turn, envision new roles for design in confronting disruptive global challenges, such as overpopulation and resource depletion, by arguing that ‘’design speculations can act as a catalyst for collectively redefining our relationship to reality’’. An important detail here is the desire to change people’s relationship with reality rather than seeking to change reality itself. According to Dunne and Raby (2013, p. 2), the majority of ‘wicked’ problems the world is currently facing simply cannot be solved through design intervention. Instead, designers should focus their efforts on changing the ideas that shape our world by challenging people’s actions, beliefs and values through the creation of design speculations.

The roles of the designer and the audience

Within speculative design, the critical and discursive lend themselves best to fulfil the objectives described in the previous paragraphs. In these fields, a designer has the power to evoke, steer or change the tone of public debate. Yet it is not the role of the speculative designer to instruct the audience how to think; rather he or she should allow members of the audience to construct their own opinions about the issues that are being presented (Franke, 2010). But the designer does have a profound influence on how this will take place. He or she can choose which aspects of the speculation to highlight, and use his or her design skills to direct the attention of the viewer.

How the audience informs the creation of speculative designs

According to Grand and Wiedmer (2010) creating convincing design fictions depends on finding the ‘’right focus’’ between what is too far removed from our current world to have an impact on our thinking and that which is too realistic. If the speculation is considered too weird it will fail to make the audience relate and engage, yet when it is too familiar the audience is able to easily assimilate it into what they already know; thus failing to provoke or question existing beliefs (Grand & Wiedmer, 2010; Auger, 2013). Knutz and Markussen (2013) are critical of this criterion. They argue that it isn’t possible to pinpoint whether the fiction is either too far removed or too close to our current reality.

Auger (2013) addresses this problem by proposing the concept of establishing a ‘perceptual bridge’ between the speculation and the audience’s perception of their own reality, as well as various methods to do so. At the core of these methods is a distinction between two categories of speculations. The first; speculative futures, are extrapolations of systems and technologies we know today. The second; alternative presents, investigate a changed present by assuming it came to be under different ideological and technological circumstances.

Franke (2010) proposes two strategies for the creation of speculative designs. The speculative designer either presents a fictional world, which provides a framework for the audience to experience alternate ‘’moral and social dilemmas, tragedies or comedies’’ or he creates an object that triggers the audience construct a fictional world in their imaginations. Knutz and Markussen (2013) prefer the use of literary techniques to engage in ‘’experimental world-making’’. These crafted worlds inform the design of objects that, in combination with a story, move the audience to this alternate reality.

Using the audience as a focal point for speculative design

If science fiction has its audience and design has its users (Sterling, 2009) then a design fiction must have both. The user, however, exists only as an element of this speculative world. The members of the audience exist in our world and perceive the speculation from their own cultural and social backgrounds, with their own beliefs an preconceptions. In the methods for creating design speculations described above, considerations regarding the audience usually enter the process at the very end. Yet in any traditional design project, investigating and understanding the user, other stakeholders and their context(s) is crucial.

A designer intends to achieve a certain effect for his or her user through a design intervention. A problem with speculative design is that the designer has little influence on how the audience will value his or her work, as he is supposed to let the viewer draw their own conclusions. Bardzell et al. (2012) view this ‘’disinterest in intention’’ of critical theory as problematic. They argue that design is about intentional change and that avoiding creative intention limits the ability to design.

Whether a speculation is successful or not depends entirely on how it is perceived by the audience. The first step is therefore to define the desired effect the speculation should have on the onlooker. The second is to investigate how this effect can best be achieved. The designer needs to use what he or she knows about the audience as a starting point. He or she should investigate the fears, hopes and expectations that exist among the audience in relation to the topic that he or she is interested in. By knowing what these are they can be exploited to maximum effect, for instance through choices in world building or in determining the characteristics of the (fictional) user. It can also be used to direct the attention of the audience to the desired level of discourse.

The type of audience also informs the medium and channel(s) that should be used to present the speculation. These are considerations of a more practical nature, as the audience can be a specific group of experts, museum visitors or the general public. These different audiences will look at the speculation from different perspectives and will have different levels of willingness to engage. They will also have different expectations regarding speculative design. The designer has to use these considerations to his or her advantage.

According to Auger (2013), creating a definitive guide for creating speculative designs is impossible, as new perspectives and methods keep emerging. This, of course, does not mean that it is not helpful to try to define the space as much as possible. Speculative design is an effective approach to criticise and create discourse. Through the creation of fictional worlds it helps to develop new perspectives on the societal and technological developments of our own. The audience therefore plays an important role in the success of these speculations and must not be considered merely as passive onlookers. The success of a speculative design depends on the designers’ understanding of the audience and their ability to exploit this knowledge for maximum impact.

REFERENCES

Auger, J. (2013). Speculative design: crafting the speculation. Digital Creativity, 24(1), 11–35.

Bardzell, S., Bardzell, J., Forlizzi, J., Zimmerman, J., & Antanitis, J. (2012, June). Critical design and critical theory: the challenge of designing for provocation. InProceedings of the Designing Interactive Systems Conference(pp. 288–297). ACM.

Bleecker, J. (2009). Design Fiction: A short essay on International Conference on Designing Pleasurable Products and Interfaces (pp. 231–240). ACM.

Dunne, A. (1999). Hertzian tales. Electronic products, aesthetic experience and critical design.Dunne, A., & Raby, F. (2013). Speculative Everything: Design, Fiction, and Social Dreaming. MIT Press.

Fairs, M. (2014, May 15). “Not all design is for the general good,” says MoMA’s Paola Antonelli. Retrieved December 22, 2014, from http://www.dezeen.com/2014/05/15/not-all-design-is-for-the-general-good-says-momas-paola-antonelli/

Franke, B. (2010) “Design Fiction is Not Necessarily About the Future.” Sixth Swiss Design Network Conference, Negotiating Futures — Design Fiction (2010): 80–90.

Grand, S., & Wiedmer, M. (2010). Design Fiction: A Method Toolbox for Design Research in a Complex World. In proceedings of the DRS 2010 conference: Design and Complexity.

Markussen, T., & Knutz, E. (2013, September). The poetics of design fiction. In Proceedings of the 6th International Conference on Designing Pleasurable Products and Interfaces (pp. 231–240). ACM.

Revell, T. (2013, December 2). Tobias Revell: Critical Design / Design Fiction lecture finally written up. (loooooong). Retrieved December 22, 2014, from http://blog.tobiasrevell.com/2013/12/critical-design- design-fiction-lecture.html

Smith, S. (2013, May 16). Scott Smith (Changeist) @ MFW13. Retrieved December 22, 2014, from https://vimeo.com/66314529

Sterling, B. (2009). Design fiction. interactions, 16(3), 20–24.

Sterling, B. (2013a, October 11). Patently untrue: Fleshy defibrillators and synchronised baseball are changing the future (Wired UK). Retrieved December 22, 2014, from http://www.wired.co.uk/magazine/archive/2013/10/play/patently-untrue

Sterling, B. (2013b, October 19). Venn diagram of anticonventional objects. Retrieved December 22, 2014, from http://brucesterling.tumblr.com/post/64469207921/prett ier-versions-of-an-earlier-sketch-of-mine