"Design fiction posits that the future can be imagined through narrative devices, and that indeed, this is already related to the way designers work: brainstorming, speculating, creating and prototyping."
"Design fiction" reminds me of Syd Mead, concept artist and futurist who said that in order to create a better world we have to imagine it first, after insinuating that he was sick of designing dystopian futures because if we keep seeing them then that's the only world we'll imagine.
"...to expand the definition [design fiction] and range of design fiction so that more design disciplines can benefit from its intellectual reach."
The works discussed "occupy three different points along a spectrum of 'the rea'—the degree to which reality can be said to be necessary for fiction to be plausible."
"Francheschini's users collaborate earnestly and endeavors to create meaning with the environment and their place in it. Reality is built upon actual, and virtual, social networks and interactions. Ideally, the future is ethically constructed through people-design-people relationships."
"Taking the expansive view, design criticism and design fiction are part of the design authorship family. They expand the discipline into what might appear to be foreign territory, but really tread on familiar and accessible grounds once the roots are exposed. Because of this, these new directions offer strong potential for enriching the design discipline while being inherently interdisciplinary." —WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT?! So far all this article has said is "if Designers make some shit then they're actually saying something and being authors." Well done. Designers who create are authors. This concept of the design fiction, which just means "stories that incorporate fictional designs" are basically any film that incorporates concepts that aren't a part of our real world now. This whole article seems pointless so far.
"When designs work well, when there is a perfect symbiosis between form and function, the value increases as the user's needs go beyond satisfaction to having emotionally rewarding experience with the design. However, in the hyper-consumerism of the global economy, the notion of 'needs' that are met through designed artifacts, environments and services has become consumer desires that are anticipated, manipulated, cultivated and consummated."
— unpacking this means that rather than the design serving a function and fulfilling a need that already exists, instead, the consumers desires are designed. So, design addresses less needs and more desires.
"The function of much design now is to lubricate the exchange of currency, not to provide affordable housing, healthy foods, efficient transportation, accessible information, a cultured citizenry and more. The success of much design is cemented the moment i leaves the store, not over the lifespace of its use, or its reuse, or in its discarded state."
— I agree with the idea that design doesn't necessarily serve as much a purpose as it did, though we're invited to believe in its power through TED Talks and "new technology" that makes "so and so" easier and more efficient. Design and marketing typically work together to sell us things. BUT the author assumes that design has always had these lofty ambitions to help save the world and I'd argue that design from the beginning has never been about these things. Considerations of environment, sustainability and reuse are only present facets we teach because they're necessary now to our continual survival. We've only considered them honestly since the 80s and seriously since the late 2000s (thanks Al Gore, and now Arnold Schwarzenegger). Further, it's not necessarily "design" but more precisely "architectural" and some "product" design that has ever been concerned with housing, transportation and cultured citizenry. So, it's a great sentiment but I don't see it grounded in any reality I'm aware of.
Chris Jordan Intolerable Beauty: Portraits of American Mass Consumption. "Visually seductive while shocking the viewer with a disturbing portrait of consumption and waste. Through personal expression the images are art; through communication of environmental issues teh images are designed to create awareness and inspire change." But ARE they inspiring change? I'd argue that for anything to genuinely facilitate change it must also provide a solution for how to adjust behaviour rather than just shock. When a viewer leaves the exhibition, they're likely to forget what they just felt if there's no avenue for them to follow through immediately on what they've learned.
Regarding the Design for the Other 90% about "designs created for popoulations who do not enjoy the standard of living taken for granted in the Western World" is just an art exhibition unless the the designs, such as the Worldbike cargo hauler and LifeStraw water-borne bacteria filtration system are actually manufactured on mass and distirbuted to the people's who need them most. If design is about function, then the function of the design is actually to be used by the people it is designed for and solve the bigger problem. I've had a look into Worldbike and sent them an email to see whether they're still in production and how it went. LifeStraw appears to have gone into production, though with a price-point starting at $39.95 for a personal straw, it's pretty fucking expensive to give one to every person in a developing community—so they give one to a school child based on purchase, a similar model to Zambrero's who give rice to communities based on the sale of each burrito.
"Art is conceptual. Ideas about seeing, feeling, observing, documenting, communicating, parodying and satirizing give art its social and psychological impact. Art gives voice to fundamental human emotions. Concepts of visual and spatial syntax, semantics and semiotics relate art to design. Event he notion of art being therapeutic for its creators is valid to designers as they are called upon to emphathize with their users."
"Art has social, cultural and political influence. Art's roles include both reflecting back at society and speculating as to society's future. Like design, art imagines scenarios — not just applied, problem-solving scenarios, but imagining for imagining's sake, an act of pure speculation. Art also serves as critical commentary — it gives voice to the marginalized, the outsiders, it speaks truth to power."
"One long-held assumption is that art comes about from an internal, personal motivation while design requires an external, public impetis. Another is that design results from a client commission, thereby casting the activity as primarily an economic trade, while art might eventually sell int he marketplace but this shoudl not taint its creative production. Both assumptions carry truths as well as myths, and polarize creative activities that design authorship strives to bridge."
I still have no idea what this concept of "design authorship" means and why its a necessary definition.
"Design has a purpose. Art has no purpose. I can't imagine one without the other." — Paula Scher.
"... a more appropriate definition [art and design] might be that art and design have an ever-shifting and contextual relationship. Lacking a firm border, they share a gray zone of indeterminate boundaries, awaiting creative exploration."
"When designs work well, when there is a perfect symbiosis between form and function, the value increases as the user's needs go beyond satisfaction to having emotionally rewarding experience with the design. However, in the hyper-consumerism of the global economy, the notion of 'needs' that are met through designed artifacts, environments and services has become consumer desires that are anticipated, manipulated, cultivated and consummated."
— unpacking this means that rather than the design serving a function and fulfilling a need that already exists, instead, the consumers desires are designed. So, design addresses less needs and more desires.
"The function of much design now is to lubricate the exchange of currency, not to provide affordable housing, healthy foods, efficient transportation, accessible information, a cultured citizenry and more. The success of much design is cemented the moment i leaves the store, not over the lifespace of its use, or its reuse, or in its discarded state."
— I agree with the idea that design doesn't necessarily serve as much a purpose as it did, though we're invited to believe in its power through TED Talks and "new technology" that makes "so and so" easier and more efficient. Design and marketing typically work together to sell us things. BUT the author assumes that design has always had these lofty ambitions to help save the world and I'd argue that design from the beginning has never been about these things. Considerations of environment, sustainability and reuse are only present facets we teach because they're necessary now to our continual survival. We've only considered them honestly since the 80s and seriously since the late 2000s (thanks Al Gore, and now Arnold Schwarzenegger). Further, it's not necessarily "design" but more precisely "architectural" and some "product" design that has ever been concerned with housing, transportation and cultured citizenry. So, it's a great sentiment but I don't see it grounded in any reality I'm aware of.
Chris Jordan Intolerable Beauty: Portraits of American Mass Consumption. "Visually seductive while shocking the viewer with a disturbing portrait of consumption and waste. Through personal expression the images are art; through communication of environmental issues teh images are designed to create awareness and inspire change." But ARE they inspiring change? I'd argue that for anything to genuinely facilitate change it must also provide a solution for how to adjust behaviour rather than just shock. When a viewer leaves the exhibition, they're likely to forget what they just felt if there's no avenue for them to follow through immediately on what they've learned.
Regarding the Design for the Other 90% about "designs created for popoulations who do not enjoy the standard of living taken for granted in the Western World" is just an art exhibition unless the the designs, such as the Worldbike cargo hauler and LifeStraw water-borne bacteria filtration system are actually manufactured on mass and distirbuted to the people's who need them most. If design is about function, then the function of the design is actually to be used by the people it is designed for and solve the bigger problem. I've had a look into Worldbike and sent them an email to see whether they're still in production and how it went. LifeStraw appears to have gone into production, though with a price-point starting at $39.95 for a personal straw, it's pretty fucking expensive to give one to every person in a developing community—so they give one to a school child based on purchase, a similar model to Zambrero's who give rice to communities based on the sale of each burrito.
"Art is conceptual. Ideas about seeing, feeling, observing, documenting, communicating, parodying and satirizing give art its social and psychological impact. Art gives voice to fundamental human emotions. Concepts of visual and spatial syntax, semantics and semiotics relate art to design. Event he notion of art being therapeutic for its creators is valid to designers as they are called upon to emphathize with their users."
"Art has social, cultural and political influence. Art's roles include both reflecting back at society and speculating as to society's future. Like design, art imagines scenarios — not just applied, problem-solving scenarios, but imagining for imagining's sake, an act of pure speculation. Art also serves as critical commentary — it gives voice to the marginalized, the outsiders, it speaks truth to power."
"One long-held assumption is that art comes about from an internal, personal motivation while design requires an external, public impetis. Another is that design results from a client commission, thereby casting the activity as primarily an economic trade, while art might eventually sell int he marketplace but this shoudl not taint its creative production. Both assumptions carry truths as well as myths, and polarize creative activities that design authorship strives to bridge."
I still have no idea what this concept of "design authorship" means and why its a necessary definition.
"Design has a purpose. Art has no purpose. I can't imagine one without the other." — Paula Scher.
"... a more appropriate definition [art and design] might be that art and design have an ever-shifting and contextual relationship. Lacking a firm border, they share a gray zone of indeterminate boundaries, awaiting creative exploration."
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