The Importance of Stardate 45470.1
Posted on November 10, 2018Speculative Design
Standing adjacent to, but not quite touching, the world(s) of science fiction is Speculative Design, as described by Anthony Dunne and Fiona Raby. They posit that Speculative Design is fundamentally different from other forms of design thinking and problem solving, saying:
“Large-scale speculative design contests ‘official reality’; it is a form of dissent expressed through alternative design proposals. It aims to be inspirational, infections, and catalytic, zooming out and stepping back to address values and ethics. It strives to overcome the invisible wall separating dreams and imagination from everyday life, blurring distinctions between the ‘real’ real and the ‘unreal’ real. The former exists in the here-and-now, whereas the latter lies behind glass screens, within the pages of books, and locked in people’s imaginations.”1
Dunne and Raby believe that this form of design can “open up new perspectives on what are sometimes called wicked problems”2 and, in opening up new these perspectives, reveal new realities which may shape the future.3
What I find particularly interesting is that in the above passage they specifically call for the blurring of the line between reality and the worlds within “glass screens” and “pages of books”, suggesting that much of the groundwork for Speculative Design already exists in science fiction. To support this, in developing their design concepts, Dunne and Raby pay homage to a wide assortment of science fiction stories. While I appreciate this, I couldn’t help but notice the exemption of, in my opinion, a seminal work. Nowhere in their lengthy review of the prior art do they mention Star Trek. At the very least, I believe Star Trek deserves a seat at the table. But, going further, I propose that Star Trek is, in fact, the ultimate speculative fiction that designers ought to consider. I hope to show that, despite whatever preconceived notions we may harbor, as designers, Star Trek is the show for us.
Left: Dunne & Raby, What If? 2010-2011, Wellcome Trust Windows, London. Photograph Kellenberger-White
Right: Paramount Television, Star Trek: The Next Generation; The Masterpiece Society, 1993. Film still.
The Masterpiece Society
On Stardate 45470.1, Captain Jean-Luc Picard and crew are passing by a back-water planet to conduct observations when they encounter a secluded colony on the verge of destruction by a “stellar core fragment”. This colony is inhabited by a group of genetically advanced humans – bred over eight generations through carefully controlled procreation to create a “perfect” society. In Star Trek: The Next Generation Episode 113: The Masterpiece Society (1992), lead writers James Kahn and Adam Belanoff create a world, like many other Star Trek worlds, that thrives in the “what-if”. The audience is given space to consider alternatives; we’re presented with concepts and questions sans pedantry. Like any good sci-fi, the writers forego satisfying narrative conclusions to allow us to languish in the uncertainty.
The Masterpiece Society is particularly fascinating because it concerns itself, primarily, with questions of design. The premise begins with the “what-if” (“What if we could create a perfect society?”) and, from that locus point, zooms out to consider what-else, often traipsing into the realm of design thinking. Even the name of the episode – The Masterpiece Society – implies design’s role, that the society itself was crafted and perfected. That it is a “masterpiece” necessarily connotes that it is designed.
In order to illustrate the value of Star Trek for us as designers, I would like to take some time to discuss the questions surfaced in The Masterpiece Society:
Spacesuit
In order to create a genetically perfect society, the Masterpiece-ers needed to remain separate. To do so, they established themselves in a biosphere on a planet that is otherwise uninhabitable, and thought deserted. The purposes of the Masterpiece-biosphere are twofold. 1) Living in an isolated, self-sustaining biome allows the society to exist untouched by any outside influence, a necessary condition for genetic perfection. 2) By living within a completely sealed biosphere, they are able to design their environment to perfection, just as they are able to design themselves.
The Masterpiece-biosphere is an interesting metaphor (or synecdoche) for our designed world. Though, in fact, the metaphor is quite literal for the Masterpiece-ers – the biosphere constitutes the entirety of their world. This prompts us, as designers, to ask: In what ways does this differ from our present designed world? On this matter, Bruno Latour, discussing the philosopher Sloterdijk, says:
“Naked humans are as rare as naked cosmonauts. To define humans is to define the envelopes, the life support systems, the Umwelt that make it possible for them to breathe. This is exactly what humanism has always missed…in the same way as a spacesuit or a space station is entirely artificially and carefully designed, so are all of the envelopes that constitute the fragile life supports of humans…Humans are to be handled with infinite precaution from the womb (natural or artificial) in which they are grown…all the way to the place where they survive and die.”4
According to Latour, the Masterpiece-biome is not all that different from our own planet – they are both envelopes, spacesuits. Just like the Masterpiece-ers, we are surrounded by an atmosphere whose condition is determined by our actions. And similarly, we are separate and secluded from all outside contact. Are there really any differences between our biosphere, and that of the Masterpiece Society? Is there value in recognizing these similarities?
Paramount Television, Star Trek: The Next Generation; The Masterpiece Society, 1993. Film still.
Oddkin
With the establishment of the Masterpiece-biome, we are given space to wonder: How might perfected humans interact with their biome?
As a response, we learn that an essential part of the Masterpiece Society is their relationship with their environment. They consider themselves a part of the world in which they live, just as they consider their microbiomes an essential part of themselves, as well.
It seems utopic that a perfect society would have moved beyond the Anthropocene and into a world of careful design. But, how might this relationship have developed? How might it affect daily life? As in any exercise that moves beyond the human-centric, scholar and feminist Donna Haraway serves as an apt guide. The identity of the Masterpiece-ers has an “oddkin” quality to it, as Haraway would describe it. They rely on each other, their environment, and their microbiome in collaboration and combination.5 They have carefully designed themselves in harmony with and as a part of the world in which they live. This development poses many critical and interesting questions. Again, to leave it to Haraway:
“Making kin as oddkin rather than, or at least in addition to, godkin and genealogical and biogenetic family troubles important matters, like to whom one is actually responsible. Who lives and who dies, and how, in this kinship rather than that one? What shape is this kinship, where and whom do its lines connect and disconnect, and so what? What must be cut and what must be tied if multispecies flourishing on earth, including human and other-than-human beings in kinship, are to have a chance?”6
Resilience
This last question, raised by Haraway, about what “must be cut and what must be tied” is raised in The Masterpiece Society, partially, as a question of governance. This is also a question on the mind of many design thinkers today. Theorist Tony Fry, for example, raised similar questions when he discusses the future of our designed world. In a lecture given at The New School in August of 2018, he proposed an authoritarian alternative to democracy as a possible mode of governance to bring about a more sustainable future.7
Star Trek proposes a similar situation; the Masterpiece Society is run by an authoritarian head of state, one who is bred and raised for the role. While this serves as a main driver for the narrative arc of the episode, it can also act as a focal point for a Donella Meadows-style exploration of “resilience”. Captain Picard’s involvement with the Masterpiece Society causes it to splinter when a group of curious Masterpiece-ers, seeing what life might offer outside of their biosphere, feel constrained by the walls and regulations of their society and choose to migrate. This shows that the Masterpiece Society was not resilient enough to withstand any interference or unexpectedness, opening up questions about the society itself. As Meadows says on resilience:
“Resilience arises from a rich structure of many feedback loops that can work in different ways to restore a system even after a large perturbation.”8
As with many of the debates in this field, I wonder if this is not all a cruel zero-sum game. Are we capable of flourishing under democracy? Are we able to survive under another form of government? Should we strive to make authoritarianism more resilient, or should we aim for a more purposeful democracy, if that even exists? Ultimately, what might a true Masterpiece Society look like; and how else might it look?
Ideas as Stories
I will concede that Star Trek can be, in many ways, more fantasy than speculation. But despite all its problems, more often than not it shines, and when it shines, it does so in ways that are most interesting to designers. On science fiction, Dunne and Raby say, “…it is the backdrop that interests us, not the narrative; the values of the society the story takes place in rather than the plot and characters. For us, ideas are everything…”9 This is why Star Trek is our show. Every episode creates new worlds and explores them. It goes where no one has gone before, introducing new imaginative playgrounds for a better future. It raises questions, many of which coincide nicely with leading scholarship in the field of design studies. Despite existing behind a glass screen, these ideas are provocative, real, and important.
-Ryan
Cover image: Paramount Television, Star Trek: The Next Generation; The Masterpiece Society, 1993. Film still.
- Dunne, Anthony, and Fiona Raby, Speculative Everything: Design, Fiction, and Social Dreaming, (London, MIT, 2014), pp. 160.
- Ibid, pp. 2.
- Ibid, pp. 162.
- Latour, Bruno, “A Cautious Prometheus? A Few Steps Toward a Philosophy of Design WithSpecial Attention to Peter Sloterdijk,” In Medias Res: Peter Sloterdijk’s Spherological Poetics of Being, edited by Willem Schinkel and Liesbeth Noordegraaf-Eelens, (Amsterdam, Amsterdam University Press, 2011), pp. 158.
- Haraway, Donna, Staying with the Trouble: Making Kin in the Cthulucene, (London, Duke University Press, 2016), pp. 4.
- Ibid, pp. 2.
- Fry, Tony. Transdisciplinary Design Intensive. New York. August 2018. Lecture.
- Meadows, Donella, Thinking in Systems, (Vermont, Chelsea Green Publishing, 2008), pp. 76.
- Dunne, Anthony, and Fiona Raby, Speculative Everything: Design, Fiction, and Social Dreaming, (London, MIT, 2014), pp. 75.