Design for debate, an introduction to design fiction and my research topic

HELLO!

MAX MOLLONDESIGN FOR DEBATE, THE CASE OF TELEPRESENCEPhD CANDIDATE, INTERACTION DESIGN RESEARCH BY PRACTICESUPERVISION: ANNIE GENTES – TELECOM PARISTECH EMMANUEL MAHÉ – ENSADLAB REMY BOURGANEL – ENDALAB/ SOCIABLE MEDIA

Today I will talk about “design fiction” as a practitioner and researcher (it is the topic of my research) and as former student of Auger-Loizeau (Speculative Design) and Nicolas Nova (Design Fiction) @HEAD–Geneva in 2011.

SCIE FIE › DF.

What is the difference between sci-fi and design fiction?•Science fiction imagines other worlds to reflect on the values of the current world, done first by “writing”•Design fiction do something similar, but done by the “practice of design” •Both are illustrated by various media (movie, image, etc.)

Ref.(1982) Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner, artwork by John Alvin

Is design fiction useless fantasy?•Even if disconnected from market values it is not distant from everyday life values. Design fiction is

important because today, people who shape our futures are: experts (scientists) who have the knowledge + politicians who have the power to apply choices + industries which have influence when investing money. Their purposes differ from people’s ones.

•People have only a role of consumers and can’t perceive any issues before the technologies become products. The aim is to start discussions.

•It is not because we can not print beaf-steaks for lunch at the office “yet”, that we should not highlight right now the issues it brings.

Ref. Robert Zemeckis’ Back to the future 1. Christopher Lloyd plays Doc (the scientist)Obama, President election 2012Election Crowd, Wellington, New Zealand. Captured by William Hall Raine, 1931.

Why “by design”?•Design make things “usable” (left image). It also makes new needs “seducing” (right image). It has the

role to transform (or convert) stakeholders aims in consumers needs. The designer has a strategic position and can make a difference to articulate a debate between these actors.

•Design knows how to touch people using a visual language they recognise. Problematics are embedded into a familiar typology of objects (furniture, architecture, fashion, graphics, web…). Design also works within a filiation of existing objects, usages and technologies. Design has the ability to make the fiction probable and the questions accessible.

INDUSTRIES

Is it a useful approach for professional designers and companies?Industries (especially big ones) have problems to innovate. Extracting ourselves from the market constraints has a value that big companies seek. We hope it would also help them to reflect on their situation, production and identity.

SOLDIER MEETS HIS NEWBORN BABY FOR THE FIRST TIME

What is my specific work?•My research focuses on “Design Fiction” & “Telepresence”•Telepresence is a personnel and contemporary society problem, a real need and an uncomfortable

usage; Design fiction miss something, it hardly closes the loop from stakeholders – through design – to consumers, back to stakeholders. A debate enablement situation is missing.

•I work through design (producing alternatives to Skype) to rise questions as: How does technology help to bear absence? How does it transform our relation to the other, in the society? What is the designer’s role? How to engage a debate between people? etc.

What is my contribution?Research in the field of telepresence goes in many directions, there are plenty of probable futures. I design questions more than solutions. I show desirable frictions to generate discussions on meaningful issues. I put my opinion apart to let emerge the contradicting voices of the controversy and allow people to encompass a broader situation.

Ref. Geminoid by Prof Hishiguro. SMS by Apple. Telephone by Bell Laboratories. A letter. Zeus & Hera by LovePalz. DAL lamp by Violet.

I redesigned this model on the basis of:•Henchey, N. (1978), 'Making Sense of Futures Studies', Alternatives, 7: 24-29.•Hancock, Trevor; Bezold, Clement: Possible Futures – Preferable Futures, in: Healthcare Forum Journal,

Mach/April 1994, pp. 23-29•Voros (2000) (refers to Henchey) http://thinkingfutures.net/wp-content/uploads/2010/10/

A_Primer_on_Futures_Studies1.pdf•Stuart Candy (2009) https://diegeticbusiness.wordpress.com/tag/stuart-candy/•Dunne&Raby (2010) http://www.dunneandraby.co.uk/content/projects/560/0

PROJECTS

The aim is to articulate tensions among the variety of “next present” and to animate a discussion.

4 example of my projects rising different questions on the telepresence topic.In order to present my work I presented a focus on 2 projects:• More info on: http://cargocollective.com/alternative-communication/Dog-bone• More info on: http://cargocollective.com/alternative-communication/Mitoyen• 4 images here are: Mime, Mitoyen, Dog&Bone & Vapor Mist

What is design fiction? A closer look:•What: Designing for a world that does not exist (yet)•Why: Aiming at sparking discussions on the values that influence the current world•How: by designing artefacts comming from a world that has different values

Speculative design, Conceptual Design, Contestable Futures, Cautionary Tales, Activism,Design for debate, Design fiction, Discursive design, Interrogative Design, Probe design, Radical Design, Satire, Social Fiction…

DUNNE, A. PERSONAL COMMUNICATION, DUBLIN, FEBRUARY 03RD, 2012

”

“

What is design fiction? A closer look:•Various related practices and various people

DUNNE, A. PERSONAL COMMUNICATION, DUBLIN, FEBRUARY 03RD, 2012FALLMAN, D. THE INTERACTION DESIGN RESEARCH TRIANGLE OF DESIGN PRACTICE, DESIGN STUDIES, AND DESIGN EXPLORATION, DESIGN ISSUES, 24(3), 4–18, 2008

What is design fiction? A closer look:•We refer to these various practices as “Design Exploration Research” (Fallman, 2012)Ref.Fallman, D. (2008). The interaction design research triangle of design practice, design studies, and design exploration. Design Issues, 24(3), 4–18.The artefacts “often seeks to test ideas and to ask ‘What if?’—but also to provoke, criticise, and experiment to reveal alternatives to the expected and traditional, to transcend accepted paradigms, to bring matters to a head, and to be proactive and societal in its expression.” […] the artefact “becomes a statement or a contribution to an ongoing societal discussion”

DUNNE, A. HERTZIAN TALES. MIT PRESS (MA). (2005).BLEECKER, J. DESIGN FICTION (PP. 1–49). NEAR FUTURE LABORATORY. (2009).

Two famous examples that belong to design exploration research

These practices AIM ATchallenging the audience,& triggering reactionson the current state of things BY proposing alternatives, through design.

MOLLON, M., & GENTÈS, A., THE RHETORIC OF DESIGN FOR DEBATE, TRIGGERING CONVERSATION WITH AN “UNCANNY ENOUGH” ARTEFACT, (PP. 1–17). PRESENTED AT THE PROCEEDINGS OF THE DESIGN RESEARCH SOCIETY INTERNATIONAL CONSORTIUM (DRS), UMEÅ, SWEDEN. (2014)

”

“

“DESIGN EXPLORATION RESEARCH”

What are common aims and means of design exploration researches?This is a personal definition

EXPLORING ALTERNATIVES

TRIGGERING REACTIONS

GENERATING DEBATE

“DESIGN EXPLORATION RESEARCH”

Design space of my PhD research:•I study how these practices can “trigger reactions” and “generate debate”•Before to reach this aim we will talk today about: how to propose alternatives to the current

world? How to change the paradigms on which rely our world? How can a “grain of sand” deploy consequences on all layers of society?

•There is no 1 recipe!

3 EXAMPLES

AFTERLIFE AUGER-LOIZEAU (2009)

More info: http://www.auger-loizeau.com/index.php?id=9

Afterlife converts a body into energy, recharging a microbio-fuel cell battery technology, allowing the deceased to have an afterlife.As the audiences reactions were too strong, stucked on superficial issues (decomposition, etc.). The designers asked 15 colleagues to write a testimony of how they want their energy to be used by their relatives.

Here: a wife asks her husband to use it in a electric tooth brush to remind of their first kiss. A father asks his family to use his several randomly charged batteries into a TV-controller in order to have the power to block the controller responses at several occasions over time, like usually, even if he is not there anymore. These testimony refocused the debate on the value of this form of life after death.

HEROIC SIMULATOR FROM WENDY GAZE (2013)

More info: http://wendygaze.com/001-I-m-flying

Heroic Simulator is part of a series of projects exploring our relationship to cinema icons, confronted to public spaces. Here the user is allowed to leave Rose’s experience from the movie Titanic (when held by Dicaprio). The user becomes a hero.

SHENU: HYDROLEMIC SYSTEM, TAKRAM (2012)

More info: http://www.takram.com/ – https://vimeo.com/43956767• Kinya Tagawa, Project Leader, Kotaro Watanabe, Story-Weaver, Kaz Yoneda, Lead Designer with Moon Kyungwon and Jeon Joonho,

Artists.• Original concept development by Motohide Hatanaka, Ph.D., Project Leader (ex-takram, currently with YUKI Precision)• Photographs by Naohiro Tsukada• Figure Artwork by Bryan Christie (with the addition of organ rendering by takram design engineering)• © 2012 takram design engineering

What if drinkable water was reduced to 20% of its quantity due to a massive radioactive accident?The company has been given this brief and asked to design a water bottle in this alternative world (yet probable).

The result is a series of external organs made for improved water spending and saving.The user is allowed to a limited amount of water-doses per day (the white eggs).

3 EXAMPLES

• WHAT IF BIOREACTORS › DECOMPOSE OUR BODIES › WE COULD LIVE AFTER DEATH

• WHAT IF I COULD FEEL LIKE A HERO › BUT FAR FROM MY TV, FEELING FOR REAL › I COULD PERFORM INTO THE PUBLIC SPACE

• WHAT IF THERE WOULD HAVE NO MORE DRINKABLE WATER › WE STILL NEED WATER › WE COULD AUGMENT OUR BODY

We can see that one alternative element can change the whole world. The alteration can be made on different parameters (technology, user needs/expectations, social, economics, politics, environment…). The alternative world is often born from the meeting of two unexpected elements. This re-defined context of use could be part of a design brief – a usual design process with an usual design brief.

WORKSHOP:

ACTIVITY N°1ACTIVITY N°2ACTIVITY N°3

Deleted from online version for a matter of brevity

REFERENCES WE TALKED ABOUT:

Inspirations for prototyping with speculation and design fiction examples• Meanwhile: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YmokqDrIBKg• Matin Brun: http://youtu.be/JP_D0l9p_zA• Black Mirror S01e03: http://www.watch-tvseries.net/series13/Black-Mirror/

season-02-episode-01-Be-Right-Back• Black Mirror S02E01: http://www.watch-tvseries.net/series13/Black-Mirror/

season-01-episode-03-In-Memoriam---The-Entire-History-of-You

References we evoked about your topics • The City and The City, China Mieville

http://www.amazon.com/City-Random-House-Readers-Circle/dp/034549752X• Dossiers Akashiques http://www.akashic.ch• Ethical Autonomous Vehicle (About ethics and algorithms)

http://www.mchrbn.net/projects/ethical-autonomous-vehicles/• Forteresse Digitale, Dan Brown

http://www.amazon.fr/Forteresse-digitale-Dan-Brown/dp/2709626306• Strange Days, Kathryn Bigelow http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0114558/

Look at the 2nd video: http://www.my-os.net/blog/index.php?2008/11/02/1155-vue-a-la-premiere-personne-au-cinema-et-dans-le-jeu-video

• A serbian film (very violent) http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1273235/• Nymphomaniac http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1937390/

THANK YOU!

MAX MOLLONDESIGN FOR DEBATE, THE CASE OF TELEPRESENCEPhD CANDIDATE, INTERACTION DESIGN RESEARCH BY PRACTICE + INFOCOM SACRe PSL, ENSADLAB/ SOCIABLE MEDIA, TELECOM PARISTECH/ CODESIGN LAB & MEDIA STUDIES

CONTACT

MOLLON@TELECOM-PARISTECH.FR MAXMOLLON.COM