“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 decouple 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, entertain and
provoke – and transport our imaginations into
parallel but possible
worlds?
It is our probable, preferable, plausible and
possible future – the gap
between reality and the impossible, which makes it
possible for designers
to question the orthodoxy of design as well as of
the prevailing views
in technology, so that new perspectives may
emerge. Our aim certainly
isn’t one of prediction, but of wondering what would
happen if...,
speculating, imagining, and even dreaming, and
then feeding the debate
about the world and the technological environment
we would wish to
live in.
In order to do so, we must push the boundaries of
our modern way
of thinking and start taking a glimpse at how things
could be, start
imagining alternative possibilities and other ways
of being so as to make
those new values and priorities become real. This
is a task that designers
cannot tackle on their own. The exhibited projects
are greatly improved
by an exchange of ideas with people from
Fiona Raby studied architecture
at the Royal College of Art London and Anthony
Dunne industrial design. These London
designers are using design as a media for
discussion and debate amongst designers,
industrials and the public around social, cultural
and ethical implications posed by emerging
technologies. Their projects have been exhibited
and published internationally and are part of the
permanent collection of many museums including
the MOMA in New York, the Victoria Albert Museum
in London and the FRAC centre in Orléans. They
exhibited at the Science Museum of London and at
the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris. Dunne &
Raby have notably worked with major companies:
Sony, National Panasonic, France Telecom. They
have published two books: Black Design (Princeton
Architectural Press) and Hertzian Tales (The MIT
Press).
Photos: Designs for an
overpopulated planet: Foragers, 2009
Between reality and the impossible, by Dunne & Raby
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- Elena Sommariva
- 06 November 2010