SpeculativeEdu

Speculative Futures: an online discussion about Speculative Design practices

WHERE

Zoom (online)

WHEN

March 3^rd 2021 from 18:00 to 19:30 (CET) / 11:00 am – 12:30 pm (CDMX)

The aim of the Speculative Futures event is to showcase Speculative Design and related practices from the perspective of the SpeculativeEdu community. SpeculativeEdu, an Erasmus+ project, started in late 2018 with the intention of strengthening Speculative Design education by collecting and exchanging existing knowledge and experience and advancing educational practice in the area of Speculative Design and its self-critical approach. This 90-minute event will present a selection of case studies, putting designers up front, presenting their futures. The first part will include three projects selected from the SpeculativeEdu landscape and the second part will include three projects from the Global Futures Lab, Mexico City (GFL/MX). The European and North American perspectives will be at the forefront of the event, aiming to introduce participants with an emphasis on the “real world”; that is, responding to the needs of people, society, public policy and the economy. The SpeculativeEdu team will give a short introduction and will moderate Q&A sessions with invited designers.

The Speculative Futures event programme:

Join us for our Speculative Futures online discussion (free) – Reserve your spot now!

Case Studies

The One With the Programmable Friend

Authors: Susanne Wieland, Aliki Tsakoumi, Lourdes Rodríguez, Yuxi Liu, Masafumi Kawachi
Year of production: 2019

Set in a near future where automation has become commonplace, The One With the Programmable Friend takes as a point of departure new social realities of living with robots. Programmable and stereotypical, the robots’ behaviours reflect different characteristics of their respective owners/human friends, who hold contrasting views towards these algorithmic friends. As crises emerge in the plot, themes such as robot rights, employment and love are explored.

The 1990s TV sitcom Friends was used as a format to discuss the future. Through a series of exercises, activities and processes, authors of The One With the Programmable Friend became the script writers for an experimental, non-normative version of this popular representation of friendship, urban living, employment and love. The project was developed through Future Friends, a SpeculativeEdu workshop led by Jimmy Loizeau, Matt Ward, and Dash Macdonald of Goldsmiths, the University of London (UK) and James Auger, École normale supérieure Paris-Saclay (France).

Plasticful Foods

Authors: Federica Marrella, Ellen McCarthy, Alejandra Niño, & James Ric-Hansen.
Year of production: 2019 – 2020

Plasticful Foods are products made from the finest organic ingredients and recycled plastics, and by consuming Plasticful product consumers help clean up the planet! Born from a desire to disrupt waste management behaviours, Plasticful invites audiences to imagine “waste” as a resource.

The project combines facts and data from the real world, with humour and real-life marketing strategies. It calls attention to the global microplastic crisis by envisioning waste management processes as more sustainable, and even circular. The main objective of the project is to disrupt our audience’s normalised thought patterns around waste, so they will be uncomfortable enough to seek a solution. Therefore Plasticful Chips, Plasticful Burgers, and Plasticful Tea products are used to motivate people to act.

“We Did Something for Africa”

Authors: Eliza Chojnacka, Markel Cormenzana, Sabrina Haas, Elena Hess-Rheingans, James Hillman, Yang Li and Camila Monteiro Pereira
Year of production: 2019

Situated in the small village of Lushoto in Tanzania, the We Did Something for Africa project introduces a number of questions that focus on the speculative practice itself, which were embodied in the self-reflexive project as it attempted to address current criticisms. The discussion is embodied in the satirical representation of uncritical and constrained approaches in speculative practice, which are unfortunately still common. This grotesque answer questions the reliability of designers as visionaries of collective futures. Exposing failures of design processes was based from the beginning on discomfort with the role which we were given. To avoid designing for a place to which we have no rightful connection, we chose to prevent others from following the consequences of neo-colonialism.

Can we speculate about other peoples’ realities?
Is it better to act with good intentions on an uninformed opinion than to do nothing?
Is deciding not to design the most radical act of design?
Can knowledge ever be neutral?
Is speculation possible without projecting one’s own desires or fears?
Where is the gray area between inspiration and colonisation?

The We Did Something for Africa project was realised during the SpeculativeEdu NeoRural Futures workshop, led by Alessandra Del Nero, Human Ecosystem Relazioni, and Federico Biggio, University of Turin, Université Paris VIII Vincennes Saint-Denis.

The ark of life

Author: María Angélica Matilde Breña Sánchez
Year of production: 2018

This artifact belongs to a future scenario in which suicide is not taboo at all. When citizens in Mexico City turn 20, parents give their children a personalized box containing a pill to administer suicide to anyone who decides to do so. The ark includes small drawers with personal memories, a fingerprint reader, and a capsule with a single lethal dose.

The Ark of Life was created during the Global Futures Lab Mexico 2018, led by Paolo Cardini and Karla Paniagua.

Chinampa Ring

Author:Alejandra Rosillo Zanella
Year of production: 2019

Inspired by medieval rings that contained a secret compartment to store poison and the cultivation method on water known as the Mexican chinampas. This object corresponds to a scenario in which completely organic seeds are rare jewels, more valuable than precious stones, to the extent that there is a global black market for their conservation. Each ring contains seeds, which are carried around the world to preserve the genetic heritage.

Chinampa Ring was created during the Global Futures Lab Mexico 2019, led by Paolo Cardini and Karla Paniagua.

Posional

Author: Maria Elena Cruz Nieves
Year of production: 2019

Posional suggests a critique of the increasingly complicated relationship between humans and their emotions, artificially mediated. The term “posional” results from the fusion between potion and emotion. The project includes five glass bottles that contain organic compounds used by people in an alternative future in which emotions must be induced externally: Joy, anger, surprise, disgust, and fear.

Posional was devised during the Global Futures Lab Mexico 2019, led by Paolo Cardini and Karla Paniagua.

Join us online on March 3^rd (the event is free of charge). Apply here!

The SpeculativeEdu project has been funded by the Erasmus+ Programme of the European Union.