"I Read Where I Am. Exploring New Information Cultures" - читать интересную книгу автора (Various)

13. Between Reality and the Impossible: Revisited – Dunne and Raby

'What human beings are and will become is decided in the shape of our tools no less than in the action of statesmen and political movements. The design of technology is thus an ontological decision fraught with political consequences.’*

What happens when you uncouple design from the marketplace, when, rather than making technology sexy, easy to use, and more consumable, designers use the language of design to pose questions, inspire, and provoke – to transport our imaginations into parallel but possible worlds?

The projects in this exhibition** focus on designing interactions between people and technology on many different levels. They are concerned not only with the expressive, functional, and communicative possibilities of new technologies, but also with the social, cultural, and ethical consequences of living within an increasingly technologically mediated society. They explore new ways in which design can make technology more meaningful and relevant to our lives, both now and in the future, by thinking not only about new applications but their implications as well, both positive and negative.

The futurologist Stuart Candy uses a wonderful diagram to clarify how we think about futures. Rather than one amorphous space of futureness, it is divided into 'probable', 'preferable', 'plausible', and 'possible' futures. One of the most interesting zones is 'preferable'. Of course, the very definition of preferable is problematic – who decides? But, although designers shouldn’t decide for everyone else, we can play a significant role in discovering what is and what isn’t desirable.

To do this, we need to move beyond designing for the way things are now and begin to design for how things could be, imagining alternative possibilities and different ways of being, and giving tangible form to new values and priorities. Designers cannot do this alone, though, and the projects here benefit from dialogues and consultations with people working in other fields such as ethics, philosophy, political science, life sciences, and biology.

The idea of probable, preferable, plausible, and possible futures – the space between reality and the impossible – allows designers to challenge design orthodoxy and prevailing technological visions so that fresh perspectives can begin to emerge. The exhibition is absolutely not about prediction, but about asking 'what if', speculating, imagining, and even dreaming in order to encourage debate about the kind of technologically mediated world we wish to live in – hopefully, one that reflects the complex, troubled people we are, rather than the easily satisfied consumers and users we are supposed to be.

Dunne and Raby is a design studio run by Anthony Dunne and Fiona Raby.

Andrew Feenberg, [1991] 2002 Transforming Technology: A Critical Theory Revisited. Oxford : Oxford University Press. (p. 3)

This text was originally written for the catalogue of the Biennale Internationale Design 2010 Saint-#201;tienne.