There’s a design field whose aim is not to ‘solve problems’, but rather to find them and to inquire into different issues. That’s design fiction, the topic of the second Pill by Thomas Markussen and Eva Knutz.
After the Masterclass by Nicolas Nova, our students will deepen the conversation about design futures thanks to the mixed module of theoretical lectures and practical exercises held by Thomas and Eva. The first important key element is the definition of critical design, speculative design, and design fiction. The common goal of these relative disciplines is to focus on the problem rather than a solution, to stimulate people in thinking about possible futures through real objects that present para-functionalities. Para-functionalities criticize mental models that lead the observers to discover new ways to conceptualize reality. If critical design does it in a virtual and non-interactive way, the speculative design tries to involve the audience to get people more conscious about the possible uses and consequences of technology. Design fiction, from its side, does not start from a tech-driven scenario. The core interests of design fiction are social changes and possible futures, in which technology is just a means rather than the main driver of change. One of the design fiction’s outputs, the diegetic prototypes, generates “what if” questions that open the doors of imagination about a specific possible-future scenario. Common to all design fictions is that they can usually be described according to a Basic Rule of Fiction, and that’s the imaginary, sometimes even impossible “what if”-scenario. A perfect example is the movie Minority Report (Spielberg, 2002). In this case, the Basic Rule of Fiction is: ‘What if we were able to predict crimes before they are committed?’. The diegetic prototype here is, let’s say, the “PreCrime” police department.
Starting from the speculative scenario based on Gropius, H. (2032): The battle between off-grid David and Tech-Goliath, our students will work on the topic of energy production and consumption in the Age of the Pandemic. At the end of the module, the projects of the teams will be presented in the form of storyboards, techno-material experiments, and concept videos.
