Speculative Everything: Design, Fiction, and Social Dreaming - PowerPoint PPT Presentation

Speculative Everything: 
 Design, Fiction, and 
 Social Dreaming Dunne & Raby

• Dreams seem to be downgraded to hopes, 
 Speculative Everything: 
 and design is seen as a problem-solving practice. 
 Design, Fiction, and 
 • Start with “what if”… This is the bit we’re interested in. Social Dreaming Not in trying to predict the future but in using design to open up all sorts of possibilities that can be discussed, debated, and used to collectively define a preferable Beyond Radical Design future. 
 • We are not talking about a space for experimenting with how things are now, making them better or different, but about other possibilities altogether. [...] It deals, by definition, with unreality. 
 • Ideals are not measured by whether they conform to reality; reality is judged by whether it lives up to ideals. [...] The ideal is an ideational construct contradictory in itself and in contradiction with reality, but it has an irresistible power. The ideal is a practical fiction.

Speculative Everything: 
 Design, Fiction, and 
 Social Dreaming A Taxonomy of Futures

• Probable: 
 Speculative Everything: 
 What is likely to happen, unless there is extreme Design, Fiction, and 
 upheaval. This is where most designers operate. Social Dreaming • Plausible: 
 The space of planning and foresight, of what could happen. Not prediction but exploring alternatives. 
 A Taxonomy of Futures • Possible: 
 Making links between today’s world and the suggested one. There is a path from where we are today to where we are in the scenario. A believable series of events that leeds to the new scenario is necessary. Beyond this lies fantasy… 
 • Preferable: Determined by government and industry.

• Critique is not necessarily negative; it can also be a Speculative Everything: 
 gentle refusal, a turning away from what exists, a longing, Design, Fiction, and 
 wishful thinking, a desire, and even a dream. 
 An alternative as a compass. 
 Social Dreaming • Critical design gets confused with commentary. 
 All good critical design offers an alternative to how things Design as Critique are. [...] Critical design uses commentary but it is only one layer of many. 
 • A key feature is how well it simultaneously sits in this world, the here-and-now, while belonging to another 
 yet-to-exist one. 
 • Critical design, by generating alternatives, can help people construct compasses rather than maps for navigating new sets of values. 


• Divided in 4 discussion groups 
 Speculative Everything: 
 Design, Fiction, and 
 • A group can work on several group (max. 3 students) and/or individual projects Social Dreaming • The group works as a reflection panel, all projects are reflected upon by the whole group 
 Assignment A B C D Mehdi Ahidar Lyra Oey Marie Van Biervliet Luna Vermeire Eva Bavré Sébastien Bovie Beau Deneef Sóldís Finnbogadóttir Charlotte Fraeye Arno Huygens Laura Martens Teodora Oïta Zoë Pecqueux Jordy Philips Zaza Bauwens Lore De Schutter Ayla Vermeulen Mirthe Vermunicht Charlotte Decoster Victor Geldhof Naomi Greenstein Stacy Suy Stef Van Oevelen Myrthe Van Rompaey Amélie Verleene Lene Verschaeren Elisa Wij Margot De Grave Loyson Eva De Bodt Stefan Martin Peluso