2014 | Volume III, Issue 2 | Pages 8.1-8.13 The Role of Fiction in Experiments within Design, Art & Architecture - Towards a New Typology of Design Fiction Eva Knutz, Thomas Markussen, Poul Rind Christensen, Design School Kolding ABSTRACT In this paper, we argue that in order to establish de- This paper offers a typology for understanding sign fiction as a promising new approach to design design fiction as a new approach in design research, there is a need to develop a more detailed research. The typology allows design research- understanding of the role of fiction in design exper- ers to explain design fictions according to 5 iments. Some attempts have already been made. criteria: (1) “What if scenarios” as the basic DiSalvo (2012) thus accounts for two forms of design constructional principle of design fiction; (2) fiction in terms of what he calls ‘spectacle’ and the manifestation of critique; (3) design aims; ‘trope’. While DiSalvo makes a valuable contribution, (4) materializations and forms; and (5) the his treatment is too limited for understanding other aesthetic of design fictions. The typology is forms of design fiction. Grand & Wiedmer (2010) pro- premised on the idea that fiction may integrate pose a method toolbox for practicing design fiction with reality in many different ways in design in design research, but in fact they say very little experiments. The explanatory power of the about the particularities of this approach. Only that typology is exemplified through the analyses of it may take the form of ‘criticizing existing technol- six case projects. ogies’ as in critical design, ‘asking unanswerable questions’ or ‘reinterpreting the past’ by transform- Keywords: design fiction, design experiments, fictional prac- ing what is into what could be. Such explanations tices, utopianism, prototyping futures do not provide any systematic understanding of the relation between fiction and design experiments. What is required is more knowledge of how fiction INTRODUCTION features in the designer’s speculation, experimenta- Within the last couple of years there has been an in- tion and materialization of possible futures. creased interest in Design Fiction as a new practice or approach within design research (Auger, 2013; Bleecker, 2009; DiSalvo, 2012; Grand & Wiedmer, The purpose of this article is to shed light on this 2010; Markussen & Knutz, 2013; Morrison, Tronstad, question by critically examining the role of fiction & Martinussen, 2013). Ever since the advent of in a number of utopian projects within design, art modern design, designers have used fiction as a and architecture. On the basis of this study, we technique for experimenting with alternative models have been able to construct a typology, which for society or for criticizing existing ones. The allows us to characterize the role of fiction in design imaginary urban projects of the Futurists proposed experiments according to 5 criteria. The typology a city where machines enabled radically new forms is premised on the idea that fiction may integrate of architecture and infrastructure, and in the 1920s with reality in many different ways in design exper- Norman Bel Geddes envisioned what at that time iments. Since design fictions can take many forms must have looked like an utopian idea: gargantuan and variations, it is simply impossible to cover them airliners transporting people across the Atlantic. all in the stroke of one paper. Our typology is built The ability to use design fictions for speculating up from six case projects, all of which use fiction about alternative presences or possible futures is in design experiments offering alternative models at the core of design practice. What is new is that it for designing the urban environment. This typology is now claimed also to be a viable road for produc- should be thought of as an initial first step towards ing valid knowledge in design research (Grand & building a more exhaustive framework. Wiedmer, 2010). 8.1 We start out by defining design fiction and discuss- into an alternate presence by downloading human ing the role of fiction in relation to experiments in consciousness into a computer (Avatar, 2009)? What design research. Next, we account for how design if everything in our world is information (Matrix, fiction is manifested in the six case projects. On 1999)? What if women loose the ability to give birth the basis of our case analyses we then present the (Children of Men, 2006)? What if next generation ro- typology offering an overview. Finally, we critically bots took command on planet Earth (The Terminator, discuss our typology in relation to related work. 1984)? What if robots will look exactly like humans – so much that we can fall in love with them (Blade Runner, 1982)? What if the Earth will get too pollut- DEFINING ‘DESIGN FICTION’ ed to live on – and we will have to build new cities It is the sci-fi author Bruce Sterling who originally elsewhere in the universe (WallE, 2008)? coined the term Design Fiction. In Shaping Things Sterling (2005) makes the observation that de- Design fiction raises the question of how what-if signers share many interests with science fiction scenarios set up conditions for experimenting with writers, most importantly a deep engagement and prototyping of possible futures in design prac- with imaginary objects and speculations about the tice as well as in design research. To answer that future to come. But there is a core distinction as question it seems fruitful to inquire into the relation well between design and science fiction: “Science between fiction and experiments. How to prototype fiction wants to invoke the grandeur and credibility the future through experimentation? of science for its own hand-waving hocus-pocus”, while design fictions are typically more practical, more hands-on. More precisely, Sterling defines PROTOTYPING THE FUTURE THROUGH design fiction as EXPERIMENTS Experimentation is an essential human skill useful the deliberate use of diegetic prototypes to for understanding our images of reality and the suspend disbelief about change…It means validity of scientific theories about the constitution you’re thinking very seriously about potential of the world. Experiments played a crucial role objects and services and trying to get people to concentrate on those - rather than en- in Galileo’s rejection of Aristotle’s law of gravity. tire worlds or political trends or geopolitical Also the works by for example Leonardo da Vinci, strategies. It’s not a kind of fiction. It’s a kind Newton, or Einstein were based on experimental of design. It tells worlds rather than stories approaches. Experiments are central for many (Sterling, 2009) sciences, yet, we know very little about the role of fiction in these experiments. Typically the term ‘fic- Examples of such diegetic objects would be Auger tion’ is associated with something being untrue or & Loizeau’s proposal for a battery laden with energy unreal, conceived of as some whimsical ideas of an made up from acid left in the stomach of deceased author’s mind. But fiction and imaginary constructs family members from their last supper, which rela- such as metaphors play a central role in scientif- tives are given instead of a urn. Or Eduardo Kac’s ic experiments. A “wormhole”, which is a highly gene manipulated rabbit Alba that glows up in a speculative concept found in Einstein’s theory of green fluorescent color, because it has been cloned relativity (the correct scientific label is the ‘Einstein- with the GFP gene from deep-sea jellyfish. In the Rosen Bridge’), is, in a sense, as fictitious as the first instance, design fiction speculates on energy notion of “cyberspace” in William Gibson’s novel being a hollow force and suggests changes to our Neuromancer. Wormholes presuppose the imagi- culturally entrenched rituals. In the second, design nary what-if scenario of space and time being folded fiction is used to question the limits and conse- into one another in outer space (as ‘space-time’), quences of gene modification and biotechnology. while cyberspace presupposes the idea that electri- cal circuits and data transmission can be conceived Common for all design fictions is that they can usu- of as an information space through which humans ally be described according to a basic rule of fiction, are able to travel at different speeds. an imaginary, sometimes even impossible “what if”-scenario. These scenarios are fictitious worlds However, the purpose of using fiction in experi- that give utopian or dystopian images of a possible ments in natural science is obviously different from future that we as humans could end up in – or be design, art, and architecture. Here, experiments are challenged by. Consider for instance sci-fi films and carried out with the goal of verifying, falsifying, or the ”what if”-scenarios”, they play out: What if we establishing the validity of a hypothesis (Koskinen, were able to predict crime before they are commit- Zimmerman, Binder, Redström, & Wensveen, 2011; ted? (Minority Report, 2002) What if we can travel Artifact | 2014 | Volume III, Issue 2 | Pages 8.1-8.13 8.2 Steffen, forthcoming). The experiment can thus find it more meaningful to understand fiction ac- be seen as a method of testing – with the goal of cording to two opposite aims of constructing them: explaining – a scientific view of how the world is. utopia and dystopia. In design, art and architecture the experiments take on a different role (Steffen, forthcoming). In UTOPIAN AND DYSTOPIAN EXPERIMENTS IN these practices the experiment is used primarily to ARCHITECTURE, ART AND DESIGN construct images of future realities or opportunities Utopias have existed since the beginning of hu- in contrast to present realities. manity. The first writing known is Plato’s bookThe Republic dating back to 380 B.C., and much later Thomas Moore’s from 1516 (Sargent, 2010).