Speculative Design
This text discusses the usage of speculative design and how it can be used, to present realistic versions of applications in the future. Speculative design thinks about what our technology can become or how it could possibly change in the future. It uses fictional artifacts, to give people the space to dream, challenge and question the way our actual world is built and how it could look like in the future.
Material speculation
The design field has always used fictive scenarios, character descriptions, forecasts, visions or for example science fiction movies as a tool for inspiration. Speculations like these allow for comparison between the actual world and possible ways of how this world could be.
The text introduces following characteristics of material speculation:
- coupling of counterfactual artifacts and possible worlds, meaning: combining artifacts, that are not at use within our world, with our actual world
- counterfactual artifacts exist in the everyday world, meaning: these artifacts might not have a usage for us or do not “exist” for our usage, but they still are, even if they don’t fit to the logic of things
- counterfactual artifacts are generators of possible worlds, meaning: they act as propositions, that generate engagements with new possibilities within possible worlds (world imagined by designers and world imagined by people, that have encounters with the artifact)
- Counterfactual artifacts are specially crafted, meaning: the artifacts are crafted with the intent and purpose of inquiring into new possibilities
- Material speculation is critical inquiry, meaning: counterfactual artifacts challenge the actual world since they are designed to occupy the boundary between the actual and the possible.
To sum up, material speculation can be described as the intent to critically investigate and challenge our world , by creating artifacts, that are not of use in our actual world, but can be in possible futures of our world.
Sources
- Auger, James. 2012. “Speculative design: The products that technology could become”. In Why Robot? Speculative Design, the domestication of technology and the considered future. PhD Thesis. RCA, London.
- Wakkary, Ron & Odom, William & Hauser, Sabrina & Hertz, Garnet & Lin, Henry. 2016. A short guide to material speculation: Actual artifacts for critical inquiry. interactions. 23. 44-48.