Holding different languages and planning tomorrow products, designers occupy a dialectical space between the world of today and the one that could be. Advanced design practices are oriented to define new innovation paths with a long time perspective that calls for a cooperation with the Future studies’ discipline. Advanced design and Anticipation have frequently parallel objectives, but face them from a different point of view. Design is often limited to the manipulation of visual or tangible aspects of a project, while future studies are seen as an activity oriented to policy that occurs in advance of actual outcomes and that is very distant from a concrete realization. Even with these distinctions they are both involved with future scenarios building and the necessity to make informed decisions about the common future. Taking into account this cultural framework, the main objective of the study is to understand, and improve, the role of Advanced design as facilitator in the dynamics of shaping, but mostly sharing possible visions of the future. In order to explore this value, the paper identifies the specific area of Design fiction as an illustrative field of this approach. Emerged in the last decade as “a discursive space within which new forms of cultural artefact (futures) might emerge”, Design fiction is attracting multi-disciplinary attention for its ability to inform the creation of a fictional world. The paper will develop the discourse through three levels: presenting the potential role of Advanced design in the debate about “Future Literacy”; introducing the notion of design fiction though a reading of the evolution of the respective theoretical framework and, finally, discussing a selected body of case-studies from which the value of design in the practice of sharing futures emerges.
ADVANCED DESIGN PRACTICES FOR SHARING FUTURES: A FOCUS ON DESIGN FICTION
FORMIA, ELENA MARIA;
2015
Abstract
Holding different languages and planning tomorrow products, designers occupy a dialectical space between the world of today and the one that could be. Advanced design practices are oriented to define new innovation paths with a long time perspective that calls for a cooperation with the Future studies’ discipline. Advanced design and Anticipation have frequently parallel objectives, but face them from a different point of view. Design is often limited to the manipulation of visual or tangible aspects of a project, while future studies are seen as an activity oriented to policy that occurs in advance of actual outcomes and that is very distant from a concrete realization. Even with these distinctions they are both involved with future scenarios building and the necessity to make informed decisions about the common future. Taking into account this cultural framework, the main objective of the study is to understand, and improve, the role of Advanced design as facilitator in the dynamics of shaping, but mostly sharing possible visions of the future. In order to explore this value, the paper identifies the specific area of Design fiction as an illustrative field of this approach. Emerged in the last decade as “a discursive space within which new forms of cultural artefact (futures) might emerge”, Design fiction is attracting multi-disciplinary attention for its ability to inform the creation of a fictional world. The paper will develop the discourse through three levels: presenting the potential role of Advanced design in the debate about “Future Literacy”; introducing the notion of design fiction though a reading of the evolution of the respective theoretical framework and, finally, discussing a selected body of case-studies from which the value of design in the practice of sharing futures emerges.I documenti in IRIS sono protetti da copyright e tutti i diritti sono riservati, salvo diversa indicazione.
