The Risks of Too Speculative Design
Posted by Veronica Uribe A. on November 1, 2014In Speculative Everything: Design Fiction, and Social Dreaming, designers Dunne and Raby, provide a description of design ideas, ideals and approaches within the field called by them speculative design. They establish a general definition of critical design: “Critical design uses speculative design proposals to challenge narrow assumptions, preconceptions, and givens about the role products play in everyday life. Critical design is critical thought translated into materiality.” (SE, 34-35) Moreover, regarding the specific way in which design challenges reality and narrow assumptions, they state: “All good critical design offers an alternative to how things are. It is the gap between reality as we know it and the different idea of reality referred to in the critical design proposal that creates the space for discussion. It depends on dialectical opposition between fiction and reality to have an effect.” (SE, 35)
How is this tension created? Well, according to the previous quote on one side we have the narrative of “how things are”; the familiar, which is provided by the public, the audience the user or whomever narrow assumptions are challenged by the design. On the other side we have the narrative[1] of “how things could be”; an alternative provided by designers in the design.
Although, this could be true for those speculative design projects that present an alternative to the present status quo, projects that present a possible future are not opposed to how things are but to how things could be according to the audience. Imagining futures is a quality of human beings; it is how we act towards a goal. Yes, designers have a special ability for futuring, because in order to introduce new designs in the world they observe, research, define, ideate, test and prototype. That is why speculative design is a valuable practice. However, in my opinion, by remaining mostly in the ideation phase, speculative design projects risk losing this especial value in futuring, because they face no longer “wicked problem”. The fact that aspects of design that are ignored in order to freely imagine the future (the market, specific context and in many cases the interaction between user and artifact, user and designer, and designers and other stakeholders) could have a positive influence in futuring that is overlooked in these kind of designs is a concern.
Food, Meals and Cooking
I will illustrate my point with the analysis of a specific project of speculative design; a counterfactual thought experiment[2]: “Republic of Salivation (2011-2012)” by Michiko Nitta and Michael Burton. The project is placed in a future when we face food shortages and famine. Governments control the amount and the type of food each citizen receives. It is “carefully designed to the emotional, intellectual and physical demands of their job.” (RS) The exhibition that took place in Stroom Den Haag, the Netherlands in 2012, presented an industrial worker’s diet that is “largely designed on modified starch, enabling the body to work for longer on fewer nutrients.” (RS)
The pieces of the exhibition–life size installation of an industrial worker’s room and a clip of “saliva sampling”– explore the possibility of a government controlled food supply and the biological reaction to a mono-diet. The project does it in creative way. On one hand, the research on nutrigenomics and the following by-products of its introduction to everyday life is scientifically accurate and uncanny. On the other, the exploration on the possibility of a government controlled food supply system; the changes it could make to our practices and the artifacts that could be designed to facilitate those new practices show the complexity of human relations. Food-porn and alcohol manufacturing from saliva are an excellent example of this.
Despite being a very well thought speculative design project, it seems to miss the true scope of food in our society. Though they seem to recognize the role of food in other realms beside alimentation (food porn is not only salivation inducer, it also a recognition of the role of food as pleasure provider) they seem to forget an important practice: cooking. There is no trace of this practice. Furthermore, its disappearance is not even addressed in the project. It is disappointing that a practice such as cooking (linked mainly to women) is not mentioned in a project like this. This is one of the enormous risks that speculative design takes by remaining too speculative. For example, participation from possible users would have shown this blind spot in the project.
[1] In his article, “Between Wit and Reason Defining Associative, Speculative and Critical Design in Practice”, Matt Malpass states: “In satiric critical practice, a quality of narrative is always essential; fundamentally it describes the use of storytelling techniques to pass comment if inquire through the actions of designing. Narratives of use situate the product in a use context that allows the user to understand and engage with the design and further its satiric forms.” (347)
The narrative could address its design and production process, its use in the world or both. Also the kind of narrative used varies according the type of critical practice or design. Finally, this narrative makes use of rhetorical images or logical arguments to expose the critique. Although their classifications differ, both Dunne and Raby, and Malpass agree that rhetorical figures or logical arguments are used in critical and speculative design.
[2] According to Dunne and Raby counterfactuals “provide a fresh alternative to future-base thinking by presenting parallel worlds as though experiments rather than predictions.”(Speculative Everything, 82) Furthermore, “What-if scenarios” (a variation of counterfactual thought) “allow the author to strip narrative and plot right down to basics in order to explore an idea” (Speculative Everything, 86). Although they are narrative (contrary to what Dunne and Raby state), thought experiments such as this, are not subject to coherence. They allow the designer to redefine limits and rules to “test ideas, refute theories, challenge limits, or explore possible implication.” (Speculative Everything, 80)
Bibliography
1. Dunne, Anthony, and Fiona Raby. Speculative Everything: Design, Fiction and Social Dreaming. Cambridge: MIT Press, 2013. Print.
2. Nitta, Michiko, and Michael Burton. “Republic of Salivation (2011-2012).”Burtonnitta.co.uk. 1 Jan. 2012. Web. 31 Oct. 2014. <http://www.burtonnitta.co.uk/>.
3. Malpass, Matt. “Between Wit and Reason: Defining Associative, Speculative and Critical Design in Practice.” Design and Culture 5: 333-356. Design and Culture. Web. 2 May 2014.