Planet B. Colonial patterns in visual communication and space exploration by Aristarkhova

Vasilisa Aristarkhova

2020

PLANET B

Colonial patterns in visual communication and space exploration

Planet B. Colonial patterns in visual communication and space exploration

Written part for obtaining the academic degree MA Vasilisa Aristarkhova University of Art and Design Linz Visual Communication ’20 Univ.–Prof. Tina Frank Date

Table of contents

Table of contents Credits Abstract Introduction

4 5 6

Part I. Background Chapter 1. History of space exploration The history State of art of space exploration studies Chapter 2. Ethical critique on space exploration Chapter 3. Space exploration in art and culture Chapter 4. Decolonization of design Cultural colonization Designer under capitalism

9 10 10 13 23 36 45 45 50

Part II. Instruments Chapter 5. Design fiction as a method Chapter 6. Installation as a form Chapter 7. Nostalgia as a style Chapter 8. Artificial intelligence as a content-generator Chapter 9. Dark patterns as a communication tool

57 58 61 68 70 73

Part III. Documentation Chapter 10. Planet B Chapter 11. Colonizing Company’s brand identity Chapter 12. Colonizing Company’s digital appearance Chapter 13. Colonizing Company’s printed appearance Chapter 14. Personal belongings

75 76 81 93 100 106

Conclusion References

114 116

Planet B. Colonial patterns in visual communication and space exploration

Credits The book is typeset in Soya Medium by Good Type Foundry and Neue Haas Grotesk Display Family by Monotype. The backpack used in the installation is designed by Solid Grey.

Abstract

Abstract Planet B is an installation with a diverse range of digital and analog media elements. This project explores colonial patterns both in space exploration and visual communication and aims at widening the discussion around the colonialism in these spheres. The goals of the project are to detect existing colonial patterns, draw more attention to them, and contribute to the Decolonizing Design Movement. Within the installation Planet B, I tried to imagine what will happen if nothing changes and the world will not be closer to decoloniality than it is right now, as well as to answer the question of how this colonial past can influence and shape our future. The project shows the inadequacy of the current status quo in space exploration and graphic design. It gives a new perspective on the issue and allows us to look at our biases from a different point of view – from the year 2050. Key words Space exploration, visual communication, colonial patterns, decolonizing design. Disclaimer All characters appearing in this installation are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental. The Colonizing Company website, colonizing.company, is an internet-artwork that functions as a design-prototype only. It does not sell or provide the products. The project is noncommercial, therefore all the graphic-props and products used in the installation are not advertised and are not for sale. All the quotes mentioned in this work, visual and textual, are used for educational purposes. All the rights for quoted pieces belong to the right holders.

Planet B. Colonial patterns in visual communication and space exploration

Introduction “We used to look up at the sky and wonder at our place in the stars. Now we just look down and worry about our place in the dirt.” Joseph A. Cooper, Interstellar by Christopher Nolan I was always fascinated by science fiction novels. It is hard not to be when one were born in the country that actively participated in the space race and sent the first human into the cosmos. So when Interstellar, a science fiction movie by Christofer Nolan, was released in 2014, it easily became my favorite one. The only thing I would not believe back then is how close this scenario is to reality we are facing right now. With my passionate interest in space exploration and science fiction, I saw moving to Mars as a topic of study with great potential and expected it to be very fun to work on. But in the process, I discovered an incredible depth to it: moving to Mars is so much more than just the pure scientific joy of becoming a multiplanetary species. Reviewing the topic of space exploration, I noticed some major issues that are often critiqued in the scientific world, and I would like to put these topics to a broader discussion. In this paper, I would like to focus on the ethical side of the problem.

Introduction

For example, one of the ethical issues is that inhabitation of Mars is often seen as a necessity for the survival of human civilization. Because of the complexity of ecological problems, some people nowadays indeed push society to believe, that moving all of humanity to Mars is an easy way out of this situation. Another issue is the colonial lexicon being used when referring to the topic of space exploration. I noticed that no one calls this phenomenon “moving” – it is colonization, occupation, or exploitation. Neither of these words has a positive connotation that we might want to apply to our future. All the ethical issues are deeply connected at the root and it is not possible to study them separately: they are all results of the colonial mindset existing in the world until now. That is why I intend to answer only one yet very important question through my artistic project Planet B: how could our colonial past impact our future? The main goal of the master project is to find colonial patterns both in visual communication and space exploration. I aim to increase awareness of the problem, that our world is still living by this same old colonial set of rules. By questioning the status quo in graphic design — namely the western standard or “universal” design — and interpreting it as a sign of our colonial past, this work will contribute to the Decolonising Design Movement, and, therefore, the visual communication field itself by debunking and overthrowing exclusive outdated standards. At the core of Planet B is a very ambitious assumption of Elon Musk, the founder, CEO, and chief engineer/designer of SpaceX, who claimed that by 2050 there will be a million people living on Mars. This statement has inspired me to work on this topic at first, and, later, to imagine the type of reality he is trying to create. Design fiction as a method helps us visualize where we are going and where we will arrive, based on the current situation. I chose an installation as a display of my idea to create a sense of immersion into one of many possible futures, leaving the viewer the freedom to decide whether he/she likes that perspective or not. In an attempt to answer the research question and accomplish the goals of the project, I will present my research in the following structure. In “Part I.

Planet B. Colonial patterns in visual communication and space exploration

Background”, I will review the theoretical background of my work in four chapters: history of space exploration, ethical critique on space exploration, space exploration in art and culture and decolonization of design. In “Part II. Instruments”, I will offer an overview of the method, form, style, content, and communication tools which helped me translate my ideas into the form of visual communication. In “Part III. Documentation”, I will present my artistic project Planet B. There I will explain how the ideas mentioned in the first chapter were represented in this example with the help of the methods mentioned in the second chapter.

Assumption of Elon Musk that by 2050 a million people will live on Mars. Source: @elonmusk

Part I. Background

Chapter 1. History of space exploration Chapter 2. Ethical critique on space exploration Chapter 3. Space exploration in art and culture Chapter 4. Decolonization of design

Part I. Background

Chapter 1. History of space exploration

The history Since the beginning of time, people looked up into the starry night and wondered what is up there. Their feelings about this strange space above their heads were constantly changing: fear, adoration, incomprehension, a myriad of other things. But one feeling was always there. The one that, some people believe, was incorporated in our nature. The desire to know, to learn, to explore has brought us not only to the farthest places on Earth but to space, far above our planet. There grew up already a few generations of people who did not know the world without space missions like my grandparents. In my lifetime, I do not remember a time without seeing the International Space Station on the news, which celebrates its twentieth anniversary this year. It has been part of our daily life. We cannot imagine not going to space anymore, can we? And all of that was and is happening because of one feeling. Curiosity was not just about the rover – it was about its creators, people. Current plans of humanity on space exploration are strictly focused on one particular destination. We aim to Mars, the red planet, and we have never been so close to it. The dream of the first people developing rockets – soviet physicist and rocket scientist Konstantin Tsiolkovsky and German-born NASA aerospace engineer Wernher von Braun – was actually multiplanetary traveling. The Moon was planned to be only a small step in between. But with the end of the cold war, the space race ended too, and so these bright minds could not

Chapter 1. History of space exploration

see their dream come true. Moreover, the expensive shuttle program which was started in 1981 pushed traveling to Mars a few decades farther. However, the level of excitement about space missions has risen again. One of the reasons for it is the continuous success of the first private space exploration company SpaceX. It was founded in 2002 by Elon Musk, and its mission was to rethink space-traveling by developing a cheaper way of flying through the atmosphere thus opening the gate for multiplanetary traveling and, at the end of the day, for Mars colonization. The main issue of space missions was their cost. A major part of the launch costs come from building a rocket which is supposed to burn down completely during the flight. It makes space-traveling extremely unprofitable. And it can be compared to building a new airplane for each and every flight. So, the company SpaceX believed in fully reusable rockets, which can not only withstand reentry to the atmosphere but also be able to safely refly after the successful landing.1 And they made it into history. In 2008, Falcon 9 was the first privately built rocket to reach Earth’s orbit, and in 2015 Falcon 9’s first stage was able to return and land back on Earth. These events turned the whole industry of space exploration on its head. Therefore, the new space race began – this time between government agencies and the private sector. Or is it between humanity and time now? I think one of the reasons why SpaceX has succeeded is its charismatic leader Elon Musk. Musk is often being compared to Tony Stark, a fictional character of the Marvel universe, “genius, billionaire, playboy, philanthropist.” 2 Elon Musk is a very passionate man that dreams big, he has good rhetoric skills, almost unlimited budget as well as a sense of humor. Take his Twitter account where he writes about his unbelievable plans. Most people think of these tweets as of silly jokes, however, all of these proposals and predictions sooner or later become reality. That is why people tend to believe in him. Yet he is a very controversial character. While implying to be an environmentalist, Musk popularizes space travel and e-vehicles that actually do a lot of harm to the nature contrarily to popular belief.

Part I. Background

First of all, Elon is a businessman, so he does everything just to sell his products. However, he can be very poetic and inspiring too. The SpaceX website quotes him: “You want to wake up in the morning and think the future is going to be great - and that’s what being a spacefaring civilization is all about. It’s about believing in the future and thinking that the future will be better than the past. And I can’t think of anything more exciting than going out there and being among the stars.” 1 The destiny of humanity lies beyond the Earth, that is what Elon Musk believes in. Is it not quite romantic to think of? I have to agree: once I had started my research on the topic of moving to Mars, I found his point of view extremely promising and inspiring. To say the least, not only people, who are far from rocket science, find him trustworthy and right: Experts in this field find his ideas and contribution very valuable and helpful too. A good example of this, is one of the greatest physicists of our time – Stephen Hawking. In his last book Brief Answers to the Big Questions Hawking mentions Elon’s plans to establish a Moon base and then go to Mars in 2020th. In the chapters “Will we survive on Earth?” and “Should we colonize space?” he agrees with him upon the necessity of Mars colonization. He believes that until we find a place to escape to and leave the Earth, until there is a plan B, we are at an incessant risk of being destroyed forever as a civilization. 3 And unfortunately, there are a lot of ways to end our existence. One of the biggest risks, now and in the long run, is climate change. The change, or crisis, was initially provoked by the rapid growth of humanity, our consumption, and our needs. In his book, Stephen Hawking refers to our history: every time humanity faced the crisis of outgrowing our habitat in the past, there has always been a place to colonize. Americas, Africa, Asia, Australia: Europeans arrived in every part of the world and conquered it. Now we occupied everything, we even won a few battles for a territory against nature. But nature can strike back, and this is what is happening. “We are running out of space and the only places to go to are other worlds,” – claims Stephen Hawking.

Chapter 1. History of space exploration

He also understands that moving a part of civilization to another place, “will not solve any of our immediate problems on Earth completely”, but it will give us a new perspective as well as some time to strategize and figure out how to proceed. There will always be people who will argue that it is better to spend money and resources to face the problems we already have on Earth. However, his counter-argument to it is, that no one is “denying the importance of fighting climate change” and no one is going to stop spending money on Earth, instead he proposes to invest an additional quarter of a percent of the world’s GDP for space projects. “Isn’t our future worth a quarter of a percent?” 4 State of art of space exploration studies The date that is considered to be the starting point of space exploration history is the 4th of October 1957. On that day the Soviet Union launched the first human-made object into the Earth’s orbit – Sputnik 1 (“sputnik” literally means “companion” in Russian, later it also became a synonym to the word “satellite”). This event kicked off the space race and space exploration itself. Throughout 63 year of history we reached a lot of milestones in this field such as delivering humans into space, orbiting the Earth, spacewalking, and even the Moon landing. Since our actions were just brief, harmless investigations carried out in the name of science, humanity was not burdened by the need to develop any special ethics and morals for further exploration outside of the planet. But with the continuous development of this field of study, space exploration very soon will be commercialized. The main problem of commercialization is that often when it comes to profits, which is an inseparable part of any commercial activity, morals fade into the background. Having certain ethics is necessary in this case, for commercialization can lead towards destruction, therefore, some regulations to ensure space is protected. And it is the task of the scientific community to remind our civilization to stay humane and make sure that no harm will be done to other species, should we be lucky enough to meet some. Working on ethics of space exploration is extremely important right now, since we may come to another world – e.g. Mars – way sooner than we think and we need to be morally and ethically prepared before deciding to “colonize” and “exploit”.

Part I. Background

One of the goals of this chapter is to find out which blind spots exist in the field of ethical space exploration and which topics are not sufficiently discussed by the publicity. In order to accomplish this task we need to answer the question: What is this quarter of a percent of the world’s GDP mentioned by Stephen Hawking being spent onto? Specifically, which projects, experiments, and researches are being conducted in this field? Mars500 With Mars being the main focus of this work, because of it being the closest destination, which makes it the obvious next target to explore, the first project coming into sight is Mars500. Mars500 is an international study conducted by the Russian Institute of Biomedical Problems (IBMP) with the active participation of the ESA (European Space Agency) conducted in 2010-2011. Its task was to simulate the first full durational manned flight to Mars to prepare for future space flights to the Moon and Mars. During 520 days of the experiment 6 male participants were completely isolated from the rest of the world, with the exception of the control center, communications were realistically delayed by a period of 8 to 736 seconds in both directions. The goal of the study and of all the conducted experiments was to learn how long term isolation affects astronauts’ physical and psychological states: hormone regulation, immunity, sleep quality, mood, stress-levels and the effectiveness of dietary supplements. 5 Researchers registered that, during 17 months of living in four hermetically sealed interconnected modules, the crew’s ability to perform complicated tasks decreased. Some of the participants later confessed to the press that they had insomnia and anxiety problems. One year after the beginning of the experiment, the crew also participated in interviews about their feelings, sensations, and other points that usually are not described in scientific reports. I was most interested in two questions: “Did you feel yourselves really flying to another planet?”, “Do your family and friends support you?” 6

Chapter 1. History of space exploration

Regarding the first question, only 1 out of 6 participants said that he really felt like being in a long space flight and was excited about it. All the rest of the crew stated, that they were fully aware of time and space and realized that they were on Earth, even though sometimes they did not think of the modules as being located directly in the Moscow suburbs. Concerning the second question, every member of the crew answered the same: they were all actively communicating with the outside world via email and were missing their closest ones. In reality, the authors of the research were not aiming to completely simulate the process of the flight, since the simulation of zero gravity during 1,5 years on Earth technically was not quite possible, instead they tried to only study the effect of isolation. Nevertheless, I found these exact answers critical for my project. Later in this work, I will return to these questions and explain their importance in the context of my installation. Another one of the problems of the study and the cause for criticism was the complete absence of female members inside the crew. Study organizers claim that they received applications from female participants, but none of them met medical requirements. And they actually believe that maybe it is for good, because “women definitely complicate psychological climate.” 7 This point of view is extremely common in post-soviet Russia. For example, in some interviews concerning other space travel experiments conducted by Russian agencies, statements may be found, claiming that women were the main problem of the mission since they caused a rivalry between male crew members and that for this reason they were preferred to be left out for the sake of science. I find that these comments are highly inappropriate and inhibiting the development of this field of study. HI-SEAS Contrarily to Mars500, HI-SEAS (Hawai’i Space Exploration Analog and Simulation) research program was never exclusively for males. Founded in 2012 at the University of Hawai’i at Manoa and

Part I. Background

funded by NASA, it has operated long term planetary surface missions. 8 The program included a series of 4-to-12-months-long missions, during which crews of 4 or 6 people, half of them male and half female, completed routine tasks to run the module, called the Habitat, and weekly practiced skills in the field needed for the actual investigation of Mars. The Hawaiian project offered higher crew autonomy over their daily tasks and over the mission itself than its Russian analogue, Mars500, as well as it gave a possibility of using real Mars-like landscape in the simulation. The focus of the research also radically differed from the one of the Russian project. HI-SEAS was designed to test the equipment, but not the Habitat itself, nor any rockets, or spacesuits. It was built to test a far more critical piece of the simulation – humans.9

– The humans are a part of this whole system. And if the humans fail, this is just as broken as if the rockets do. – Yeah, and humans do fail a lot. This dialogue between the scientific journalist Lynn Levy and the principal investigator for HI-SEAS Kim Binsted was recorded during the HI-SEAS IV mission for the podcast The Habitat that aired on Gimlet Media in 2018. This iteration of the mission lasted for

Chapter 1. History of space exploration

one year from Summer 2015 till Summer 2016. The audio-documentary format showed not only technical problems of the mission but also a lot of social issues. Furthermore, the podcast is able to deliver a good impression of what people were actually testing and what is usually hidden behind long, unclear and dry scientific reports.

HI-SEAS II crew members inside and outside of the Habitat. Source: hi-seas.org © HISEAS

Researches wanted to know how a group of strangers, isolated for a long period of time, behaves and how their relationships evolve under the pressure of extraterrestrial routine as well as of extreme situations. Already from the first episodes of the podcast it is noticeable that the Hawaiian experiment is far more alive and social, than Mars500. I could definitely tell that it is an improvement in space flight studies and a step in the right direction. Biosphere 2 Before studying some particular and narrow topics like the effect that long term isolation has on social lives or on physiological and mental health, people tried to conduct way more ambitious and

Part I. Background

“When you build a new world, you have all the problems in the world to solve.” Mark Nelson, Biosphere 2: What Really Happened?, Dartmouth Alumni Magazine big experiment. They wondered whether it was possible to build an enclosed artificial ecosystem just like Earth, put humans inside of it and see if and for how long it would sustain? On the 26th September 1991, a project called Biosphere 2 was launched. The construction covered 12,700 square meters and hosted 3000 species of animals and plants in total. The facility was in fact a human-sized terrarium containing six zones representing different Earthly biomes, two of which were assigned to humans and their vital activities.10 Eight crew members were supposed to be isolated in the park for 2 years without any help from the outside world, growing food by themselves, regulating the weather conditions of the climate zones, controlling populations of plants and animals, and eliminating any imbalance of the system. The results of the study were fascinating. Mark Nelson, the crew member of the first mission, later in 2018 writes about his experience in the book Pushing Our Limits: Insights from Biosphere 2. He believes that participating in such a project made him and the crew more conscious about sustainability and more aware of the natural processes happening on Earth. Because of the rela-

Chapter 1. History of space exploration

tively small size of the ecosystem, Mark Nelson and his colleagues could observe the consequences of their every action. They came to the understanding that it is really hard to recreate Earth-like conditions in a closed system and that we definitely should not take Earth’s wealth such as its fresh and breathable air for granted. But the experiment also showed that this kind of living was possible: they left no trash behind and lived in a fully organic world which was extremely sensitive and therefore fragile. It seems like this experience could be very helpful in building habitats on Mars in the near future. But what does the scientific community have to say about it?

The complex of Biosphere 2 in 1991. © John Miller / Associated Press

Biosphere 2 was one of the most controversial experiments in the history of ecological studies. Some claimed that the researchers were 50 years ahead of their time. Others called the experiment “show-biz, not science.” 11 The experiment was receiving a lot of critiques since its beginning. Firstly, because the owners and investors were pursuing mercantile interests: the facility was functioning as a commercial attraction as well – a human zoo. Thousands of tourists were visiting Biosphere 2. It also received a huge promo-

Part I. Background

tional media campaign in 1991 and its launch was celebrated with a party for 2000 guests right in the Biosphere itself. Then why was this project forgotten and abandoned after its remarkable entrance? Scientists labeled the experiment as scam as soon as it became known, claiming that organizers were cheating: hiding safety stocks of food in the facility, secretly pumping oxygen under the dome and provisioning the crew with vitamins, seeds and other products and tools.12 After all these reveals, Biosphere 2 was not considered trustworthy and realistic anymore. However it is not a reason to put all the gained data into the drawer. Despite the received critique the project led to a lot of important conclusions and helped to gain special experience. Apparently, it is not so easy to recreate an Earth-like ecosystem, and that is the argument that we need to keep in mind while thinking of inhabiting Mars or any other celestial body. Life on the red planet will not be possible in the same way as we know it on Earth. NASA 3D Printed Habitat Challenge The idea of colonizing space, making it ours, drives humanity not only to improve transportation technologies. After all, when we arrive in another world we will need a more comfortable stay than just a tight spaceship. In 2014 NASA announced “competition designed to advance additive construction technology needed to create sustainable housing solutions for Earth, the Moon, Mars and beyond.” 13 The purpose of the challenge was to encourage a broader group of architectural and design teams, studios, and agencies to work in the direction of space. NASA intended to harvest ideas on how modern technologies, tools, and materials could be used in terrestrial and space architecture. And this was a technically tough challenge.

Chapter 1. History of space exploration

As every part of the Earth has its special qualities like natural resources, landscape type, climate, and others, each of them has different requirements for housing and architecture in general. In some places buildings must resist extremely low temperatures, some must be prepared for tornadoes or earthquakes, and in some places only bamboo trees could be used for construction. The same applies to other planets and celestial bodies. While Earth has spoiled us with plenty of materials to make, create and build whatever we want and how we want it, the Moon and Mars, for example, do not own many resources on their surfaces. Moreover, they have physics very different from the ones that we have here. Despite some similarities between Mars and the Earth, like being located in the Goldilocks zone of the solar system and having almost the same duration of the day, they have different parameters. Mars is 2.5 times smaller than Earth and it means that gravitation on the red planet is only 37.6% of the Earth’s. This is bad for our organisms but could be good for architecture. The smaller force of gravity will allow building bigger structures with fewer supports.14

The concept of a Martian habitat by the studio Hassell. Source: hassellstudio.com © Hassell

Part I. Background

This advantage can change the appearance of architecture completely as well as the main constructing method. However, there is one more major problem for architects on Mars that has to be solved: the weaker magnetic field of the planet allows deadly sun and space radiation to come through the thin atmosphere and hit the surface. So architecture must also include one important feature – sufficient radiation protection. Coming back to the competition itself, in 2018 the short-list of 10 projects was announced. As the name suggests, one of the main requisitions of NASA 3D Printed Habitat Challenge was the constructing method – 3d-printing - so all the participants had to adapt this technology to Martian resources and climate, designing not only housing but the whole process including delivery of the printers and their appearance. I was the most drawn to one of the short-listed entries, the work by the studio Hassell. Their idea was to deliver to Mars autonomous modular robots which can unite in formations to perform different tasks. These robots’ mission is to 3d-print protective domes or shells from an easily accessible Martian surface material – regolith. After completing the shell, it becomes possible to unfold underneath it a series of inflatable ‘pods’, architectural units containing all the equipment necessary for life and exploration. Authors of the project explained that as designers they were aiming first of all “to bring a more human element to space design, typically all about maximum efficiency and performance.” 15 They believe, that besides having in mind all the technical problems and their solutions, space architects should take into consideration that this habitat is most importantly “a home away from home.” I have to agree that living conditions do highly affect performance and mental state. Therefore, it is a good idea not to neglect the necessity of an actual home feeling, especially when it comes to such a long term mission as an expedition to Mars.

Chapter 2. Ethical critique on space exploration

Chapter 2. Ethical critique on space exploration While living on planet Earth, in all its beauty and uniqueness, we still dream about new worlds and this is fine: curiosity was always inherent in people. But behind the dream about of a bright future in space there is also a really big problem: our home-planet started to change because of us and, instead of replacing our bad habits with less malicious ones, we choose to run away and look for a new planet as an answer. While reviewing space exploration history and current space missions, as well as studies on the topic, I have noticed some blind spots that exist in the field. These spots are either less explored or are not known enough by the broader audience. Nevertheless, it does not make these topics, concerns, or opinions less important. In this chapter, I will describe them and give some critique on the problem of space exploration from an ethical point of view. Linguistic Many people are convinced that linguistic problems in space exploration are the least essential to be solved. In my opinion, they are as important as the others. And here is why. The core of the linguistic problem lies in the language and word choice, which we are using when speaking about space exploration. The most common words we hear are: colonization, occupation, and exploitation. They usually stand in one row with neutral, scientific “exploration”. But are these words really synonyms?

Part I. Background

“The language of colonialism is infecting outer space, thanks to dominance by rich white businessmen and politicians.” Caroline Haskins, The Racist Language of Space Exploration Colonization, occupation, and exploitation all have a negative meaning derived from their historical context. The term colonization was developed to describe the process by which a central system of power dominates the surrounding land and its components. A dominated territory, in this case, is called a colony, and the dominating system of power is a colonizer. Colonization is usually accompanied by the oppression of the native culture, the distribution of the supreme culture of a colonizer, and also by the unlimited use of all kinds of valuable resources belonging to the colony such as its labor force, fossils, and so on. This irresponsible use of resources is also called exploitation when the colonizer is the only one who profits from it and nothing is returned to the colony’s natives and nature. The term exploitation has a negative connotation, because often the economical growth of the colonizer leads to the environmental and cultural degradation of the land. Moreover, exploitation goes hand in hand with occupation, which has some features of colonization. One of the meanings of the word is connected to war and is used as a military term: it is effective provisional control by a ruling power over a territory, without a claim of formal sovereignty.16 This is a temporary state of the land, but it is far from being a positive one.

Chapter 2. Ethical critique on space exploration

Based on this brief term analysis, each of the words colonization, occupation, and exploitation does not have any positive meaning. They are not synonyms of exploration. But the problem is that they are used as such. So, for people who are not prone to critical thinking, these words may mean the same thing. No one asks why Stephen Hawking writes in his books words like “colonizing Mars” right next to “space exploration”. Yuval Noah Harari explains in his famous book Sapience. A Brief History of Humankind that “the Scientific Revolution and modern imperialism were inseparable.” 17 This is the historical background of such a horrible neighbourship. Europeans colonized the whole world partly because of a thirst for knowledge, and now this world is going to colonize outer space for the same reason. But as much as this thirst for knowledge drives the world, so does capitalism as well. At a closer look, it becomes visible that the loudest voices in the field of space exploration belong to white rich politicians and businessmen. The majority of people seem happy about Elon Musk’s idea to occupy Mars and colonize it. Furthermore, almost everyone knows about the new military unit of the U.S., founded by Trump, namely the Space Force, which is supported by most people because it will help to “make America great again.” This slogan is actually super racist as well. Americans tend to refer to colonization as a heroic time full of adventures and brave conquistadors.18 This mindset, which not only entitles Americans to colonize but implies it as their destiny, is already incorporated in their identity. And the use of this word in such an engaging way makes the history of violence and dispossession vanish from memory. Colonization does not associate with evil anymore. But it still is. In colonialism there are always the oppressed and those who benefited from it. As long as we apply this language to our future in space, it will remain this way. When people with the power to make space travel possible, such as Trump and Elon Musk, who are multiplying their wealth by benefiting “from systemic racism and the potential economic glory from new economic ventures,” tell you about the greatness of a spacefaring civilization and believing in a bright tomorrow, there is one thing that they fail to mention. Not everyone will be part of that future.

Part I. Background

But is it a problem at all if the world is uninhabited like the Moon? In this case colonial language will not be a big moral problem that could harm someone immediately. However, if we think of a farther future, it could be the instrument of segregation, oppression, and reckless profiting on space exploration. Language does shape our minds. And the time to ask ourselves, if this is how we want to live is now. Is not this negative context not enough to stop using these words? In how far should space exploration differ from the colonization of continents and countries? Do we not have better words for that, than exploitation, colonization, and occupation, in order to be more careful with what and how we inhabit? And we do have a better lexis to frame our future in a more ethical way. For example, instead of “colonizing” and “occupying”, we can “inhabit” other worlds, “settle” on other planets, “accommodate” on them, and just simply “move” to Mars. Sometimes it sounds ridiculous that simply changing the words we say we could change our whole attitude. But language is a great tool which we should use. And if there is any chance to change the approach to space exploration and to living in general, we should grab it with both hands. Nothing terrifies me more than a world that wants to continue applying this old imperial mindset that caused so much pain, deaths, and oblivion of cultures and nations, to the future. Aesthetic Another critique on space exploration, and on inhabiting Mars in particular, has an aesthetic background. It is no secret: people love beautiful things and beautiful places. For us, beauty was always a measure of value. We want to surround ourselves with it, that is why we build extraordinary houses in extraordinary places. But some prefer the mountains instead of the sea to accommodate themselves. And here the problem is born – aesthetics is a matter of taste. But even if some people like waterfalls more than forests, this does not allow them to destroy what they do not like. The importance of preserving the beauty of the Earth is undeniable. The Earth is beautiful no matter what. But is Mars beautiful enough for us to save its indigenous appearance?

Chapter 2. Ethical critique on space exploration

“Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.” Margaret Wolfe Hungerford, Molly Bawn

And from what do we have to protect the red planet? The answer is terraforming. Terraforming is a hypothetical process by which an environment of a celestial body (either a moon or a planet) is deliberately modified to reach Earth-like conditions with the purpose of making life on it possible. Some scientists believe that terraforming is a necessary step in colonizing Mars and, therefore, in the survival of our civilization. Moreover, terraforming is the only way to accommodate and sustain the whole population – “billions of interplanetary refugees.” 19 It could also be the biggest scientific eco-project in history, from which we can learn so much, even though it is going to change Martian landscapes forever. And there is always an opportunity to enhance Martian beauty with Earth-like nature. As one can see there are a lot of arguments pro terraforming. But still: is all of this enough to justify destroying its environment to make it suitable for us? The genuine beauty of Martian landscapes is the only counter-argument. Some say Mars is objectively not beautiful: Humanity had so many fantasies about this planet, and Mars failed them as we learned more about it. That is why in the media we still see mostly terraformed pictures of the planet: images of Martian landscapes which were edited to look more exciting and closer to our assumptions for more audience engagement. It seems that we have certain beauty standards even towards planets. But looking at NASA pictures on Google and actually stepping on this distant, unknown, mysterious planet are no doubt two very different experiences. We have never even seen Mars with our own eyes, but we already trying to decide whether we should sacrifice it or not.

Part I. Background

For me personally, Mars is extremely beautiful. It is different and definitely less saturated than how the most renderings and movies depict it. But the iridescently colored craters and dust waves are beautiful too. We need to make more space in our heads for different kinds of beauty: of planets and of humans. To change the identity of the whole planet in order to make it look like the Earth is a very problematic intention because the Earth itself already does not look like it did 200 years ago. So instead of thinking about changing other worlds, I prefer to focus on keeping the red planet red and the blue planet blue as it is supposed to be.

Dunes and craters on the Martian surface made by HiRISE. Source: beautifulmars.tumblr.com © NASA / JPL/ UArizona

Environmental Since the beginning of the 20th century, the idea of having space colonies exists in the world. The shape of this idea was always changing, as every enthusiast proposed his unique vision, but the core was the same – in their opinion humanity should have colonies in outer space. It all started with Konstantin Tsiolkovsky, who published a novel Beyond the Planet Earth in 1920 and described the very first concept of people living in

Chapter 2. Ethical critique on space exploration

“The whole focus on the mission turned to the Earth after we saw the Earth coming up over the lunar surface. And the Earth was the only thing in the universe that had any color. It was very lonely and the universe is pitch black. I think it gave us a sense of ‘We better do our best to take care of this little blue marble that we have.’ ” Frank Borman, 1968 space, 41 years before the first manned flight to the cosmos. In the 70s the same utopian idea was proposed by American physicist Gerard O’Neil. What he offered was to build a colony in space to minimize the impact that humankind had on the Earth’s environment by moving a part of the population

Part I. Background

from the planet to outer space. The scientist believed that if a civilization gains the ability to build space colonies “it becomes unkillable in the physical sense.” 20 It is hard to argue with this point, but environmentalists always have had their objections to it. For the critics of space colonies that were influenced by the environmentalist movement, “the very idea of space exploration is not only unwise, but also immoral.” 21 For Wendell Berry, author and environmental activist, O’Neil was “a space enthusiast, who ignores what is essentially a moral problem and offers technological solutions instead.” Berry considered this approach as wrong because if we wanted to save Earth from us by going further into space, then who would protect from us space itself? The western approach has presented the world with industrialization and the mentality of constant growth implemented into capitalism. Together they irreversibly changed the environment of our home planet. “Space is, then, a delusion, for it offers more growth and technology to stop the mess caused by growth and technology.” 22 Only changing our habits could stop spreading the damage. It is the only sustainable alternative to our current way of life that would be beneficial in the long run. Because if we do not care about one planet’s nature, we are going to fail every single planet on our way. Stephen Hawking considered that spending money on space exploration does not mean that there is no need to take care of Earth. 23 And I agree. But while Hawking wrote this in 2018, Wendell Berry was pointing out this moral problem already in 1977. That means that we still have not found an environmental solution for our planet, but instead we continue irresponsibly dreaming about colonizing space. If the perspective of being unkillable planetary nomads is not enough to make people more aware of the consequences of their actions, there is another reason why the ethics of space exploration must be established as soon as possible. We, humans, have a long history of destroying biospheres and erasing species on our planet by profiting from the resources. The same fate could await for other worlds that we encounter.

Chapter 2. Ethical critique on space exploration

As I have already mentioned in the section dedicated to linguistic critique on space colonization, science and capitalism usually go hand in hand. By this I mean that all the spheres science has discovered are soon to be commercialized. The same goes for space. Commercial use of it is not a fantasy anymore. The U.S. government has already opened an office of space commercialization and an office for commercial space transportation. The institutionalization of the commercial activities encouraged private businesses to step into the field of space exploration which before was exclusive to science and military. While the interest of science in new worlds lies in discovering extraterrestrial life, the interest of the commercial sector is in finding profits outside of our planet. The most popular directions for business development in space at the moment are space tourism and mining. “In addition to the monetary return to the investors, there might also be significant values to the rest of humanity in forms of jobs, access to resources and other opportunities.” 24 But any commercial invasion of an inhabited world could lead to catastrophic consequences both for earthlings and for indigenous life. That is why it is so important to start the discussion about the ethics of space commercialization while we are not yet technologically able to start the exploitation of other worlds. But what does it take to establish that a world is uninhabitable? This question has not received a lot of attention so far, but answering it is crucial prior to deciding whether a world should be exploited. The problem of confirming that a world has no living potential lies in the asymmetry between Proving an Instance and Proving a Universal. To explain briefly: It would be enough to get one positive result to prove that a world has life, but how many ‘negative results’ would be needed to prove that there is no life? It is yet unclear “how many observations we need, how diverse they need to be or how good they have to be for us to be convinced that a planet is uninhabited.” 25 Another grey area is in the kind of moral obligations that would arise once the existence of life is proven. Here we have to decide whether this form of life is sentient (has the ability to feel and experience what happens to it) or not. And this is already an ethical task rather than a scientific one. There is one

Part I. Background

new branch of ethics that confronts this problem on Earth – Geoethics. But astrobiology seems to require this geoethical approach as well in order to include every potential victim of the process of space exploration and not only humans. That is why it is time to leave behind this anthropocentric mindset and include perspectives of others on the agenda before we decide to exploit what we find. In any case, I find the colonization of other worlds unnecessary until we learn how to take care of our own planet. Psychological Besides the points of linguistic, aesthetic, and environmental critique on space exploration that I have already discussed in this chapter there is a psychological side to the problem that even in the scientific field is not discussed widely enough. Conducted experiments actually do study some psychological aspects of space travel, but they mostly regard short-term events like sending an expedition to Mars. I consider these events short-term because the final goal of all the projects and missions is to allow humans to live everywhere in the universe. Compared to this goal, an exploration mission is a blink of an eye. Whereas an expedition has to return to Earth after a few years, migration to another world could be a one-way ticket. In the Mars500 and HI-SEAS projects, the psychological effects of isolation on mental health as well as the relationships within the isolated group were studied. These projects were conducted to prepare astronauts and researchers for the mission, but no projects were studying the psychological consequences of interplanetary migration and the relationships between crew members and their significant others who stayed on Earth. I assume the reason why these consequences are not being explored enough is that it is simply impossible to study them in advance. It would be too inhuman to conduct a life-long experiment. Another reason is that people do not expect interplanetary migration to happen in the nearest future. It seems unrealistic, therefore, any studies at this point are unnecessary. But Elon Musk predicts one million people will live on Mars within 30 years from now,

Chapter 2. Ethical critique on space exploration

“And what we’re dreaming of is not the roar of a spaceport, Not this icily cold and bluish view. What we’re seeing is the grass by our houses. Oh this bright-green, this bright-green lively grass” Zemlyane*, Grass by the home by 2050. And it is not a fantasy, it is a goal. So I believe we better start thinking now about the effects that this migration might have on us. Just in case. The main psychological critique on space exploration is that as strong as the adventurous spirit in humans is, their bound to their home is just as strong. And while away from home we tend to experience homesickness. In general, being homesick means to feel grief and discomfort while missing a familiar environment. By environment, I understand people who used to be around, routines and rituals, foods and places, etc.

*Zemlyane – rus. Earthlings

Part I. Background

To understand the intensity of homesickness that could be felt on Earth nowadays and to try to imagine its interplanetary equivalent, I conducted a series of interviews with my immigrant friends. Some of them were away from home for 10 years, some of them just for a few months. I expected to see some sort of a pattern or stages of adaptation, but in fact, nowadays we have so good coping instruments that we almost never feel homesick. The internet makes life easier, we always have an opportunity to call back home or watch movies that remind us of it. All of the interviewees admitted that it was comfortable to leave home knowing that you can go back or visit anytime. The same was happening with the participants of Mars500 and HI-SEAS: All of them knew that they were still on our planet. They also knew exactly when they will see their closest ones again and will be able to go back to their lives. I think the intensity of homesickness in the event of interplanetary travel could be compared to homesickness in times before globalization. When travel from Britain to the U.S. took 2 weeks and was also extremely expensive. For some people, it was a one-way ticket indeed. But what will be different is that in addition to missing family, friends, home and places we will also miss simple things such as looking in the blue sky, laying in grass, swimming in a cold river or a warm sea. The same thought came to the mind of astrophysicist and author of the Planet Nine Hypothesis Konstantin Batygin. In one of the interviews he says: “If you maximize Mars’ potential, it’s still gonna be a total shit compared to the Earth.” 26 That is why it is so important to think of extraterrestrial habitats from a design point of view. At the moment most of the projects in the field of space exploration are aimed at the survival of civilization, not its thriving. But people who are going to move to Mars will need Mars to be their second home to support their mental health in the long perspective. One of the projects that was trying to solve this problem was actually a Martian habitat concept from the studio Hassell, which participated in NASA’s 3D-printed habitat challenge. The goal that the authors were pursuing was to “provide a degree of comfort and familiarity” in the places that were traditionally designed for “achieving maximum performance and maximum

Chapter 2. Ethical critique on space exploration

efficiency for technology and machines – but not for people.” 27 And what people really need is home. Even on Mars. Out of all the objections, the psychological consequences of space travel are the least explored and the least discussed. But to study them before actually moving to Mars is crucial for the happiness of our species. People are social animals and relationships mean a lot for them. So how will this migration affect the relationships of those who were separated? How will they cope with ‘planetsickness’? And finally, do we really want to move to Mars? These questions still need to be answered.

Fullsize model of the Martian habitat by the studio Hassell at the exhibition “Moving to Mars” in Design Museum, London. © Felix Speller for the Design Museum

Part I. Background

Chapter 3. Space exploration in art and culture The critique of space exploration is common not only in science. Artists and creators, being extremely sensitive to all the small vibrations of the world, were always translating these concerns of scientists to the wider audience and even imagining how the future would be shaped. And the best way to do it is science fiction. Science fiction is an ancient genre of literature and later of cinematography. It is a mixture of art and science, hard facts and miracle. The scientific base makes sci-fi believable, while art gives it more feelings and spark. In the right proportion, the science-fiction genre can successfully explain complicated theories and plant a grain of reasonable doubt in people’s heads. This genre was my passion long before I started this project and it was also the reason why I came to my position later: Most of the critical points I mentioned in the previous chapter were already discussed in movies and books. So in this chapter I will describe some examples. Avatar The main problem of using colonial language for the future of space exploration is that we could repeat the scenarios of indifference and violence that happened around the globe during the Age of Exploration. That is exactly what James Cameron, Canadian filmmaker and environmentalist, shows in his movie Avatar (2009). He transfers the events that happened a few centuries ago to a new time. Thanks to this work, we can imagine how the context of impe-

Chapter 3. Space exploration in art and culture

rialism makes exploration of the inhabited world problematic by turning exploration into exploitation.

Still from Avatar, 2009. Directed by James Cameron.

The Martian Chronicles A more encompassing scenario similar to the Avatar’s was introduced to the world by Ray Bradbury already in 1950 in his book The Martian Chronicles. This remains one of my favorite books because of its documentary structure and the sudden complexity of feelings and thoughts it provokes. The storyline covers the events from the first expedition of the Earthlings to Mars until the humans finally became Martians. The interesting fact is, that in the first three editions of the book the chronology begins in 1999 and ends in 2026, while later, in the 1997 edition, the dates were corrected and pushed forward to 2030-2057. Ray Bradbury criticizes the idea of space exploration and Mars colonization. He imagines such negative consequences such as climate change on Earth and the extermination of Martian indigenous life. Here I would like to highlight some turning points of the story which changed my perception of space exploration completely. One of the first chapters, “Ylla (February 1999/2030),” already gives us a completely different perspective on colonization by in-

Part I. Background

“We earth men have a talent for ruining big, beautiful things.” Ray Bradbury, The Martian Chronicles troducing characters from Mars and telling the Martian side of the story. It instantly gives us compassion and respect for the other life. This move of the author shifts our anthropocentric approach and makes us think that not everything in the world happens around us. It also makes us feel extremely regretful and ashamed, when later, in the chapter “— And the Moon still be as bright (June 2001 / 2032),” Bradbury writes that almost all Martians died out because of the chickenpox which was carried to the new planet by the expeditions. The next turn happens in the chapter “The Watchers (November 2005 / 2036).” This short story starts with the scene where people that moved to Mars “watched the green star of Earth” dying in the nuclear war. 28 I think this complete change of the object of observation, from Mars to Earth, gives this chapter and the whole book a very nostalgic mood. New Martians were standing there, watching the sky, and remembering their relatives who stayed. The distance between the two planets was usually making the pain of homesickness easier to bear, but not that day. For the human-Martians it was actually a moment of revelation: they were terraforming Mars, building American-like cities on the red planet because they never wanted to live on this planet. The reason they left the Earth – the nuclear war – was also the reason they would return back to it one last time. They loved the Earth so much. For them watching their dear home collapsing was a tragedy. And the commitment to the home planet was so strong, they could never let the Earth go

Chapter 3. Space exploration in art and culture

without them. That is why soon the majority of humans boarded the rockets and flew into the end of their only home. I think this work of Bradbury is really important to read for everyone. Despite not being very scientifically accurate (here we should note that The Martian Chronicles were written in 1949, 12 years before the first manned flight into space) the book does a great job of showing quite a full picture of how Mars colonization could look like. I believe the topics mentioned in it, like responsibility for extraterrestrial life and homesickness on an interplanetary scale, are definitely worth studying in the nearest future. Solaris (Film, 1972) The reason why I included the soviet film by Tarkovsky and not the novel by Lem itself is that, with all due respect to the original, in my opinion, the film has more depth to it. The film was sponsored by the USSR government and was planned to be a response to Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey and a statement that the Soviet Union can produce space epic too. That is why Tarkovsky was given full freedom of creation and unwillingly confronted the author of the novel. Stanisław Lem’s novel was typical science fiction: he explored the complexity of meeting sentient extraterrestrial life with which people were not able to communicate, as well as the point where

Still from Solaris, 1972. Directed by Andrey Tarkovsky.

Part I. Background

“I must tell you that we really have no desire to conquer any cosmos. We want to extend the Earth up to its borders. We don’t know what to do with other worlds. We don’t need other worlds. We need a mirror. We struggle to make contact, but we’ll never achieve it. We are in a ridiculous predicament of man pursuing a goal that he fears and that he really does not need. Man needs man!” Dr. Snaut, Solaris by Andrey Tarkovsky the science got stuck and curiosity could not bring humanity any closer to new discoveries. He discusses the ethics of space

Chapter 3. Space exploration in art and culture

exploration in terms of connecting with another species. It was simply an ode to space exploration and the perseverance of humanity. But Tarkovsky saw even more in this story. He thought that focusing only on science and technology was the main problem of the genre, so Andrey Tarkovsky turns the plot into nostalgia for the Earth. Lem accused Tarkovsky of “grounding” the script by moving a quarter of the story to the Earth. But I think that the film only benefited from this. This “grounding” gave an interesting depth to the character of Kris Kelvin by showing his life with his parents and the wife, exploring his feelings of guilt and being lost. These topics are usually not given much attention in the sci-fi genre. The story became more about love for humanity than it was before. Tarkovsky did not think of a new purpose and destiny for humankind as Lem did. Instead, Tarkovsky returned humanity to the most inhuman place – space. I support the filmmaker’s opinion completely. Feelings and relationships are not going away when going to space. Astronauts have to carry it all with them, and it is their biggest baggage. And as much as we love to talk about space, we still need our home, the Earth. “Man needs man!” 29 First man One of the similarities among the space movies is that most of them are about new technologies, brave and intelligent astronauts, and the greatness of discoveries. Whether it is a sci-fi project or a documentary, we rarely think of the heroes as just humans with their feelings, relationships and lives. It is somehow hard to picture them being normal people, sad, tender or silly, because of their unbelievable accomplishments and all the glory that surrounds them. Damien Chazelle destroys this order of things in his movie about Neil Armstrong – First man. As Tarkovsky he “grounds” the story, most of which is happening on Earth. We learn about the family of

Part I. Background

the hero and see that he could be doubtful, distant, not aggressively brave. That he could experience the desperate feeling of losing his astronaut friends, of having to replace them and of risking to find himself in the same situation, followed by the tragedy of not being able to promise his children that he will return, and in the end, the fear of being the first. Even though in the film we see some of the technical challenges of the mission, the main story lies in the relationships between Neil and his wife, between him and his children, between him and his colleagues. I especially admire that the relationships mentioned in the movie are not between the crew members of one mission, they are outside. Like most relationships we have in our lives, they are outside of our working places. And that is why I think of Chazelle’s perspective as an extremely important one for the future of space exploration. All the relationships should be considered and studied before deciding to inhabit Mars.

Still from First man, 2018. Directed by Damien Chazelle.

Interstellar Interstellar by Christofer Nolan is probably the most controversial work in this list. Its creators say that this movie would be still the same even without its space storyline. It is also the only movie in this chapter that does not prove the pattern of art criticizing

Chapter 3. Space exploration in art and culture

science. Exactly the opposite: it is showing us, what would happen if we do not change the status quo. The main character of the movie is a former NASA pilot, Joseph Cooper, who has to live in the world of farming as the planet drastically lacks food. In Cooper we see this perfect dreamer and explorer who was “born forty years too late, or forty years too early.” 30 From the dialogues with his father-in-law Donald we learn about the cause of this ecological catastrophe: “When I was a kid, it seemed like they made something new every day. Some, gadget or idea, like every day was Christmas. But six billion people, just imagine that. And every last one of them trying to have it all.” Every viewer understood which time he was talking about. But this tale about old times does not stop Cooper from dreaming of progress, space, technologies and desiring new discoveries. His mindset draws me back to the environmental critics of space exploration – humanity in this movie is trying to fix something broken by growth and technology with further growth. But at that point in the storyline, the only way to save the civilization is to leave the Earth by finding a proper technological solution. I am quite confused by the fact that there is not much attention drawn to homesickness or sadness of leaving in Interstellar. Way more screen time is given to the exploring of the family drama in the long space flight circumstances: while traveling so far away, it is getting hard to communicate with the closest ones. Because of the relativity of time not only the messages are coming with a delay, but the ageing of the family members on Earth goes far quicker, than in space. Considering the fact that the only problem of space exploration that was obviously negatively depicted is the relativity of time, I rather find it difficult to understand the real intentions of Interstellar’s creators and therefore to include it into this list. But by completely translating the current mindset about space missions, Interstellar

Part I. Background

had the same effect on me as the other listed movies and books – it got me thinking whether this is the future I want. Even if it worked in a completely different way.

Cooper, leaving his 10-years old daughter and returning to his 124-years old daughter Murph. Stills from Interstellar, 2014. Directed by Christopher Nolan.

As we can observe from this chapter, artistic critique on space exploration has strong parallels with scientific critique. However compared to science, art and culture have an advantage – they have a broader target audience. But why are these critical voices still not heard loud enough, despite the works listed here being extremely popular? I believe the reason is that art is trying to tell the story with feelings and sensations. And in this patriarchal world we have a particular bias against feelings: they are often considered to be something not serious enough to be listened to, as well as a sign of weakness. As a result, most people are still obsessed with space exploration and are not noticing reasonable objections existing around the topic.

Chapter 4. Decolonization of design

Cultural colonization Definition of cultural colonization The assumption that colonization patterns and imperialism in general, regard only territories or space is a huge mistake. Along with conquering the area, the culture is also affected. It is colonized. Nowadays the term “cultural colonization” is exchanged with “cultural appropriation”, but they mean the same thing. 31 Cultural colonization, or appropriation, is a one-sided process of adopting the elements from the culture of a minority and benefiting from it without the permission and approval of the group, as well as not giving back anything valuable in return. One of the consequences of cultural appropriation is the oblivion of the marginalized group’s culture. Because of the changing of the cultural symbols’ initial meanings and by providing no references to the culture of origin, the history of the oppressed group is erased and allowed to be misinterpreted, left undocumented, and thus, forgotten. But while appropriating the culture of the minority and exploiting it, the colonizer rewards the group with “universal” and “standard” western culturalcodes, claiming that it will enhance an “undeveloped” culture, educate it and allow it to enter the high society of the world. The results of this process are called “cultural crisis”. In this concept western culture is seen as the highest step of evolution. Even though the evolutionary concept of culture was largely abandoned, it is still embedded in our status quo. 32

Part I. Background

But when did this process of standardization start? Centuries ago the African continent was full of different writing systems. However, when the colonizers from Europe came, they imposed their Latin writing systems over the indigenous ones to be able to control the communication and have more power over locals.33 The same process happens in the visual communication field nowadays for the glory of capitalism. For example, when advertisements hand-painted by locals are being replaced with factory-made plastic signs leaving no trace of the individuality of the local community. Hidden racism in design It is no secret that racism is a result of colonization. In the imperialist era, scientific racism was extremely wide-spread to justify colonization and slavery. A lot was done to artificially differentiate races so one could gain all the power and profit from others. In fact, such labels as “black” and “white” were invented to establish the biggest linguistic contrast possible and therefore a hierarchy in society in times of colonialism. 34 This hierarchy is deeply rooted into our bias, so everything ever designed in the world was based on the assumption that western culture is a supreme standard.

Five races from Isotype collection by Otto and Marie Neurath © University of Reading

It explains why there is still a lot of hidden racism in modern culture, including in visual communication. Take Isotype, the International System of Typographic Picture Education. This system of “universal” graphics was invented by the Viennese philosopher Otto Neurath in 1920 to enable communication outside of any language, so even illiterate people could understand a depicted information. The goal was commendable, but if one looks closely at this system, one will notice, that “races are reduced to five, with the white

Chapter 4. Decolonization of design

race first, and the non-white races as secondary, depicted as dark, shirtless, and with traditional attire.” 35 In addition to racism we can see “othering” of all non-white races and reducing their cultural backgrounds to one object – a hat or a hairstyle. Isotype was proclaimed a standard and became so successful, that it still influences icon design. But this “standard” is just a standard of imperialist Europe and is extremely far from being universal. Cultural appropriation in design Yet systemic racism and cultural appropriation are different sides of the same coin. Both of them are products of colonization, which change the perception of marginalized groups and their culture. Using cultural elements outside of their context, this system of power creates a stereotypical image of the minority. These stereotypes are harmful because they make indigenous people fit into the box of prejudices and expectations coming from the simplified version of their culture. Ethnic typefaces often have nothing in common with real cultures but rather with the history of their application. Ethnic typography is actively being used in restaurants to prove how “authentic” they are or in movie posters to create some “exotic” vibe.

Chinese Restaurant Fonts collection on the website with design resources. Source: fontspace.com

Part I. Background

But cultural appropriation can be not only misleading, but offensive as well. In February 2020 one British brewery launched a new sort of Indian Pale Ale named “Veda”. Vedas, in fact, are large bodies of sacred texts and the basis of the oldest religion in the world – Hinduism. That is why the product was immediately criticized by an Indian society. Hindus urged the brewery to withdraw this ale and apologise. The president of Universal Society of Hinduism, Rajan Zed, stated that “using Vedas to sell beer was highly insensitive and trivializing of the immensely revered body of sacred and serious knowledge.” 36 Another big problem connected to cultural appropriation is the existence of double standards in western society. In the design canon, everything created by marginalized cultures is labeled as craft or ethnic art, even though the same things created by white people would be considered design. A good example is the textile industry. There are plenty of study programs in Textile Design in Europe what implies that textile in the west is being designed, but textile produced in Ghana gets cast as art rather than actual design even if the result is mostly the same. 37

Ghanian batik © Image by Molly Hamilton

Work of the Textile Design student Sara Kelly, Chelsea College of Arts © Sara Kelly

Problematics of cultural appropriation In many ways the topic of cultural appropriation is problematic. In the last few years, it earned some popularity in the west. Accusations of cultural appropriation became trendy. But the understanding of the term worsened drastically. To be considered a cultural appropriation, an occasion has to be pointed out by the representatives of the oppressed culture. But nowadays the privileged white race decides again for other races, what they should be offended by.

Chapter 4. Decolonization of design

Karlie Kloss appears in Spirited Away editorial © Mikael Jansson for Vogue US March 2017

To prove these words I want to discuss one example. In 2017 Karlie Kloss was photographed for Vogue magazine in Japan styled as Geisha. The model was accused of cultural appropriation for not being Asian and being styled like one. She issued an apology right after it became a scandal. 38 But the problem I saw, in this case, was that all the blaming voices were not representing the culture that was supposed to be appropriated. On the opposite, Karlie Kloss got a lot of support from Japanese people telling her that they see the difference between art and appropriation. And this beautiful creative photoshoot was not insulting to them at all. Moreover, domination of this topic in media made people worry about whether it is allowed to try on traditional clothing if you are not a native of the culture. But representatives of non-western cultures sometimes ask themselves the same questions: is wearing a kimono by a white person not the same as wearing jeans by them? Is it allowed now? Does it not divide people even more into “us” and “them” and give the opposite effect? With the globalization of the world, a lot of cultures began mixing into one due to the normalization and the spreading of interracial and intercultural marriages, as well as a lot of languages die out. It is a sad yet natural process. So

Part I. Background

I think of the topic of cultural appropriation as some sort of controversy. The phenomenon is definitely complex and a lot of it is in a grey area. I believe it is important to know that there are some irresponsible and disrespectful cases of cultural appropriation as well as some moments where our society overreacts to what is initially an inevitable process. And some white people, while trying to make the world a better place, still lack one quality – the ability to hear others. Designer under capitalism Why designers contribute into cultural appropriation As the western culture was implanted as a standard, the western design canon was accepted as universal too. We are convinced that design is just an instrument and therefore neutral. But design is an instrument of capitalism, and capitalism is an instrument of colonization. 37 It means that the same colonial patterns as in space exploration exist in visual communication. Sometimes people underestimate the influence of graphic design on society. As does verbal language, visual language also shapes our image of the world and defines our visual landscape. 39 We unconsciously learn the norm from what we see around, but the world is not perfect yet. So what is seen is often full of racism, prejudices, stereotypes, disregard, and injustice. The danger of having a universal design canon lies in excluding all the rest of the cultures and in “othering” them, supporting the established hierarchy. We have to admit that design has the ability to oppress. Design a priori is not neutral. Everything we do is political. We either support the discriminating status quo by helping to sell irresponsible products and services, or we help to demolish this system. Racist or exclusive design solutions are results of education. The years of oppression of non-white people led to a major dominance of the white in every sphere of life, including design education. Western conventions largely prevail in the field of visual communication. And when this homogenous group of creatives tells everyone what is “good”, then professional society adopts a similar style.

Chapter 4. Decolonization of design

When a young designer comes to a school, the school often lacks teachers and professors from various backgrounds. If this design-student comes from marginalized background, he gets neither a room nor support for his own design practice. The teaching process is unified to a western canon, and students have no idea how they can develop their own approach to design while being judged according to a “universal” one. 37 The reason why designers contribute to cultural appropriation is because the awareness of this issue is not taught in design schools. While in cultural studies this problem is being discussed since the 60s, conversations about it are rarely on the designers’ curriculum even now. 31 “Designers are trained to be chameleons.” They often do what they are asked to, not questioning themselves whether their work contributes to this systematic racism or not. Yet it is not possible to decolonize design completely within this capitalist system as we depend upon it. But designers still need to be aware of the problem and address the issues of politics and prejudice in their work. One more problem of design education that I have already discussed in the context of cultural colonization, is double standards. Works produced by non-western cultures are often undervalued by the canon and are not considered design. But we see the hierarchy even inside of the western canon. Capitalism made us think that northern minimalistic design looks expensive, while colourful and playful southern design seems cheap. Do we still choose to believe in it? What designers have to do Nowadays I see two polar roles in the design world, around which all designers more or less gravitate. The first role is the designer as a celebrity and the second one is the designer as a reporter. These roles shape the industry but also reflect its current state – mainly that the industry is stuck in an identity crisis, and being just a graphic designer is not enough anymore.40 Social media era boosted the role of designer as celebrity even further after it was formed in the 90’s. In this concept “the personality comes first and the work comes second.” 39 We see a lot of organizations in the visual communication field which support this idea entirely. Most of the conferences are con-

Part I. Background

ducted not to educate, but to raise popularity of popular practitioners even more. And of course to entertain. There I should note, that none of that is done to harm. However, nothing good comes from this approach either. Popularity in this context also became a problematic measure of success and professional worth. Because of that I often doubt my professional skills as well. If It’s nice that does not publish articles about me, do I deserve to get a job and get paid for it? The problem of this designer role is in supporting the existing system. Nothing in the world will change for better if we continue to look at nice pictures and listen to motivational stories of success. Yet a lot of internet resources for graphic designers still prefer to publish materials focusing on aesthetics rather than on the social and political issues that are hidden behind a beautiful branding. And designers are still being judged based on the “coolness” of their work.41 The role that in some ways fights this order of things is the designer as a reporter. During the last decades, we have been confronted with quite a few definitions of: designer as an author, designer as an editor, and many others. But I believe that designer as a reporter is the most radical yet uniting form of them all. Being a reporter for designers means telling stories, showing the truth, and becoming an expert in something beside design itself. The work of a designerreporter is self-initiated visual journalism. This way of creating is political and could be a kind of activism that does not agree with the world as it is. Design in this case is carefully used to translate the narrative correctly. This approach makes the designer think more about the effect that his work has when perceived by the audience. Furthermore, a visual journalist has an opportunity to change the current discriminating system, which should be the initial goal of everyone who has this power. So what can designers do to help subverting the status quo? Decolonize design! “The term ‘decolonization’ was originally used to describe the withdrawal of a state from a former colony.” In design, the key to decolonization is realising that the standards we have been taught are not universal. But to

Chapter 4. Decolonization of design

do so is extremely hard. For us to unsee the Western culture as the only right one could be compared to getting a “fish to understand it’s in water.” 37 Decolonizing design is a long process of “shuttering the familiar,” and some steps should be taken to achieve better results. In this section I will list some opinions and recommendations, which I have found useful for those who wish to contribute to the movement of decolonizing design. 1. First of all, designers should educate themselves not only about aesthetics, but about politics as well, and learn to see hidden colonial patterns in visual communication and in their own biases. 2. Designers should be aware for whom and what they are designing. They should rethink the needs of the audience and constantly ask themselves how their design solutions “might be experienced in someone else’s shoes.” By avoiding it, designers assume that everyone in the world has the same background and the same grade of visual literacy, which is not true. 3. Designers should make sure not to take charge of another’s narrative or to appropriate what is not theirs. Designers should recognize when a project is not theirs to take. This means letting people from marginalized backgrounds work on everything that is connected to their culture. 4. If designers have some financial stability they are welcome to work with non-profit organizations, projects, agencies, or other institutions. Doing the kind of work that will be beneficial for society in the long run could be a more purposeful alternative to making money. 5. If designers have a voice which could be heard, it is their responsibility to speak up. To be not only a designer-celebrity but a designer-reporter and designer-activist as well.

Part I. Background

6. Designers should help eliminating “the false distinctions between craft and design, in order to recognise all culturally important forms of making.” 37 Double standards must be debunked and local art and design respected. 7. The industry itself should try to reflect the actual world gender and ethnic ratios as in the working places as in the produced visuals. Design studios and agencies should embrace more diverse practitioners from all cultures to give everyone an equal chance to succeed and to make design products more intelligent and sensitive. But while “diversity is about bringing more people to the table,” decolonization is also about knowing “which kind of seat you are offering.” 37 It is a responsibility of the agency to create a workplace environment that is welcoming for people of all backgrounds, cultures, and experiences. Current and future generations of designers have to be more critical and inclusive in order to free the design. That is why all of us should constantly educate ourselves to be more tolerable and understandable to anyone whose experiences we could not live through. What designers have already accomplished Intentions to free visual communication from stereotypes are not something new. On the contrary, the first attempts were taken already at the beginning of the 20th century. In 1925 Bauhaus teacher László Moholy-Nagy stated that capital letters were a sign of authority and power, therefore they were discriminational. This design solution became even more popular over time, for graphic designers it was a way to break traditions and, at the same time, to use another fancy aesthetic. Later on there was an attempt to change capitalization in the opposite direction as well – by writing “Black” with a capital letter, when speaking about race, the same as it was for the “White” race since the colonial times. We could also observe how depicting beauty standards in advertising was becoming more inclusive. One of the first steps in this direction was made

Chapter 4. Decolonization of design

Ogilvy & Mather, ‘Dove Campaign for Real Beauty’, 2007 © Dove

Monki Christmas 2017 Campaign © Monki

by Dove in 2004. Since then a lot changed, and now we see a good amount of beauty and fashion brands advocating for the natural beauty of all sizes, ages, and races. This change also had an opposite effect: some companies started profiting from faking diversity by using pictures from photo stocks that did not reflect the actual situation in the company. This cheating is easy to recognize and just using diverse pictures does not make the company any better neither for minorities working in them nor in the eyes of society looking at identically blueprinted ads.

Carousel posting in Instagram explaining what gaslighting is. Source: @soyouwanttotalkabout

The last couple of years have also contributed to the history of protests in graphic design. Instagram now is filled up with all kinds of carousel guides with political messages. These instructions are supposed to not let the moments of protest remain just moments. While being extremely popular and

Part I. Background

easily understandable, this way of posting exists in spite of Instagram algorithms that are recommending only a certain type of content to its users: portraits of people, vacation photos, and motivational quotes. Graphic designers do fight this injustice by disguising political content as the one that would be preferred by social media. However, there is a controversy as well: not all the users do good research before posting these instructions. That is why no information should be taken as the truth without further detailed fact-checking. Despite all the controversies, things are slowly but constantly improving. And this is of course not the full list of designers’ accomplishments in terms of decolonizing design. In this section, I would like to recommend more resources for further reading on the topic. The Politics of Design by Ruben Pater was a good starting point for understanding the concept of cultural appropriation and racism in visual communication. For more advanced readers The Decolonizing Design movement has its own website, where they post articles and educational materials. The multilingual research platform depatriarchisedesign.com provides materials and conducts workshops on the politics of design, gender unbalance, etc. And this list must go on. There are also numerous manuals and separate articles which I have found interesting and which I will additionally mention in the sources of this work.

Chapter 4. Decolonization of design

Part II. Instruments

In Part I, I have completed the first goal of the project. I have found similar colonial patterns in space exploration and visual communication. But this project has two more goals to accomplish. First of all, I aim to increase awareness of the problem that the colonial mindset still subconsciously impacts our lives. Secondly, my other goal is to contribute to the Decolonizing Design Movement by questioning the current colonial status quo in graphic design. Therefore, in Part II, I will explain how the shape of my artistic project Planet B, consisting of method, form, style, and content helps to achieve the goals. I am also going to discuss the connection of art-work characteristics to the theoretical topics from Part I.

Chapter 5. Design fiction as a method Chapter 6. Installation as a form Chapter 7. Nostalgia as a style Chapter 8. Artificial intelligence as a content-generator Chapter 9. Dark patterns as a communication tool

Part II. Instruments

Chapter 5. Design fiction as a method

What if climate change is not an environmental problem? Naomi Klein, Canadian author and social activist, believes it is a political, economical, and social one, and thus environmental. I agree with her opinion on this global issue. I do think that climate change is complex and requires a lot of action from different subjects at one time. Each of us humans contributed to the climate change: governments, industries and, of course, people; and now it is our mission to fix it. In order to improve the situation on Earth we have to rethink our unsustainable colonialist consumption patterns. And here designers can help. I must admit that when I have started my research for this project with the transition problem, the problem of the “adaptation of humanity to post-peak oil and climate change,” these environmental issues seemed unsolvable to me.42 I could not bear to hear that designers should help to save the planet anymore. I was terrified. All I wanted was to run away to Mars. And from this insight I gained inspiration as well as a new perspective. The sudden thought struck me: another world will not help us until we learn how to take care of the first one. Moving to Mars is not a bright future, we also need to change our attitude towards living on Earth. Sean Lally, an architect, has an interesting idea of how to make the transition to a more sustainable consumption model easier. He says that history shows us examples of this process and according to them the change was happening faster when people were pulled into the new behavior, not pushed to it.43 Usually forcing someone to do something the opposite effect –

Chapter 5. Design fiction as a method

obligation naturally makes everyone desire to resist. That is why the change has to be advertised, so people may believe they were not forced to decide but it was fully their choice. Lally thinks that to make the transition more comfortable we need to pull the demand before pushing the supply. To do so is possible by spending money on the education of people and on speculation of possible futures.43 One of the ways to perform speculation is by using design fiction. This discipline, which is also a method, appears when science fiction, a story made of hard facts and some miracle, meets speculative design, a practice that addresses big societal issues through the design process. Design fiction has a lot of names such as science fiction prototyping, experimental future, etc. But in fact, it is a design concept based on a narrative, aimed to criticize the status quo, provoke new ideas, and encourage quality futures.44 The core of design fiction as a method are scenarios narrated through design artifacts. And a narrative is as important as a diegetic prototype. Diegetic means that a prototype itself should be perceived in the context of a fictional future in order to be understood by a viewer or user correctly and to be more relatable.45 I have chosen design fiction as a method because it is extremely effective when it comes to engaging. Design fiction can convince people that the transition to new behavioral patterns is possible and necessary. All thanks to the ‘possible world’ theory. This theory states that a piece of fiction can be understood better by an audience while exploring a ‘possible world’ that might not be so easy to grasp in the present reality.46 This approach simply resonates with people more because fiction is fun. Science fiction along with design fiction have inspired plenty of scientists for their researches, innovations, and discoveries. The world might not have seen tablets, antidepressants, the Moon landing, and online shopping if not for fiction. It sparks creativity and curiosity in people, so I fully believe in its power as a method. I find the role of designers in design fiction really advanced for they are not just an answer generator. Designers in this process are reporters who also formulate questions. Yet design fiction is an approach fully based on

Part II. Instruments

the question “what if?” In the project Planet B, I want to ask “what if nothing changes?” How will the world be? How will our colonial behavioral patterns influence our future? I must note that a possible future does not have to be positive. Design fiction is a very various tool: it includes plenty of narration types. For my project I chose the type called Defensive Pessimism. In Defensive Pessimism the audience is presented with an obviously pessimistic scenario to improve design ideas.44 I think that we need to redesign the way we explore space and how we verbally and visually communicate. Presenting these problematic aspects of life which have not changed in a 30 years perspective but instead worsened, questions the existing status quo and makes it seem inadequate. The aim of Planet B is not to tell people how to proceed but to make them think if this possibility is what they need and want.

Chapter 6. Installation as a form

To be understood, I have to shape my idea into form using the approach of the chosen method. Considering that for design fiction two things are the most important – a design artifact and a world which it is built around – the perfect form for my art project Planet B is an installation. The term installation art usually means a three-dimensional, large-scale, and mixed-media construction. This art form emerged from the ‘environment’, another artistic genre created by Allan Kaprow in 1958, which represents largescale artworks transforming an interior space.47 One of the features of an installation, as well as an environment, is to intensify the experience of the audience by making the work walk-in, walk-through, but not walk-by. The possibility to interact with the environment helps the viewer to sink into the new reality and sense it deeper than through another art-form. What also makes the genre of installation art special is that, unlike a series of artworks, it creates a strong unified experience. Pieces of it are inseparable and tell one single story to the audience, that is why they should be perceived together. One of the inspiration sources for my project were total installations of Ilya Kabakov, a Soviet-American conceptual artist, such as Not Everyone Will Be Taken Into the Future and The Man Who Flew Into Space From His Apartment. The author insisted that “the main actor in the total installation, the main center toward which everything is addressed, for which everything is intended, is the viewer.” 47 Here I see a similarity to design fiction. A fictional world in which the diegetic prototype or design artifact exists, has to be explored like

Part II. Instruments

The Man Who Flew Into Space From His Apartment, 1985. By Ilya Kabakov.

Model and the installation Not Everyone Will Be Taken into the Future, 2001. Source kabakov.net

an installation. Users should be the main focus of design fiction and active participators of the process because it is a human-centered design practice.46 But actually design fiction and installation art have many more things in common. (Look at the scheme on p.63). If we project the idea of design fiction – the bond between a design artifact and the world around it – onto an installation, an installation itself could be understood as a space, environment, that contains the artifact. Here I also noticed a similar parallel between installation art, design fiction, and another design practice: filmmaking. To compose a narrative around a design artifact in the form of an installation we could use the experience of set and prop designers. The importance of using a prop design for telling stories is undeniable. A welldesigned prop has the ability to not only enhance the texture of the scene but also to add up to the storytelling.48 And that is not all: meaningfully set “environments can have a metaphysical impact on how the audience perceives the story and the characters.” 49

Chapter 6. Installation as a form

Similarities between design fiction, installation art and filmmaking

Content

Environment

Design fiction

Design artifact

World, narrative

Installation art

Pieces of artwork

Installation

Filmmaking (set & prop design)

Props

Set

In my opinion, an installation is exactly this sort of frozen movie scene. And different kinds of props are used to fill this set. There is a prop classification widely used in production: non practical props, practical props, personal props, hand props, and hero props. 50 A hero prop is a prop that gets a significant amount of screen-time. It is the main focal point in the scene. For example, a letter from Hogwarts is a hero prop too. I would say that a design artifact is the design fiction equivalent of a hero prop in film production. The diegetic prototype in design fiction offers the viewers the main topic of discussion. Its role is to raise questions, provoke the exploration of a new reality and of “new kinds of social interaction rituals.” 51 In practice, when starting to work on a new movie, prop designers closely read the script and make a list of all the properties needed for storytelling. To imitate this process without a real script, I wrote down all the facts and feelings connected to the world and the design artifact that I want to mention. Therefore, every prop I created was communicating one or more of them. Thus, all the objects composing the installation were united with a single overall story, the main goal of which is to imagine what kind of world will await us in 30 years.

Part II. Instruments

To learn how I can make my installation more powerful, I read some advice from Annie Atkins, a famous prop designer who worked on well-known movies and series such as Joker, Bridge of Spies, The Grand Budapest Hotel, and others. Specifically, she worked on graphic props. That is why Atkins’s experience is even more useful to me as a graphic designer. For this reason, I will describe below an advice of her, which I found the most suitable for the installation.

Still from The Grand Budapest Hotel, 2014. Directed by Wes Anderson. Prop design by Annie Atkins.

“Just because the camera does not see it, does not mean it’s not there” 52 This advice is extremely valuable for filmmakers. Even if the prop does not get a close-up shot, it is still important to have it. It will make the lives of actors easier: when they are working on a set that seems real, it is definitely way more exciting to perform. Which is also the case for an installation in which the main role is played by the viewer. In an installation the “camera” sees everything. “Sometimes the props do the storytelling” 52 The main focus of any movie or series are the actors. What they say and how they look like seems the most meaningful for the story. That is why, sadly, a lot of work done for films as stage design and prop design stays unnoticed by viewers. Sets and props are created to be an invisible believable background. They become a focal

Chapter 6. Installation as a form

point only when a plot twist depends on them. But sometimes props do a parallel storytelling. Of course, characters and lines in Harry Potter films are important, and they literally tell us about the magical nature of the world created on set. But if we take a closer look at the graphic props, we will be fascinated by how lively and informative the designs and their contents are. A good example of this is the ticket to Hogwarts express, which says that the departure platform is Platform 9 ¾. This number says a lot even before the main character does. Everyone knows there is no such platform at any station, and no one would know how to get to it if there was one. I think this great prop design work was one of the reasons why the Harry Potter franchise became beyond popular and made money on selling copies of these props as well. For the installation it is actually crucial that props do the main storytelling. There is no accidental piece in it to make the narrative clear.

Still from Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone, 2001. Directed by Chris Columbus. Ticket design by MinaLima.

“What’s historically accurate is not always believable” 52 Modern people would not believe in everything that was true two centuries ago. This is not only because the state of science and

Part II. Instruments

technology back then was drastically different, but also because now we have some visual expectations towards historical objects. We might not think about it, but the first phone numbers were much shorter than the ones we know today. That is why for a graphic prop designer it is important to analyze whether the viewer would recognize this shorter line of digits as a phone number, especially if the formatting is different. So, sometimes, designs produced for films, are not historically accurate but believable in today’s context. Another example is banknote design. Now it is hard to imagine but most of the non-modern banknotes were printed only on one side. 52 But if this historical accuracy would take place on set, for most of the viewers these banknotes will seem unfinished and unnatural. There are also some stereotypes about how historical objects should look like coming from museums. If we look at an old piece of paper in a museum or archive, we will notice that it aged and became yellowish. That does not mean that the paper was that yellow when it was just produced. But if modern people will see a snowwhite sheet of paper in a historical movie they would not believe the image, because it would seem like it was just printed with a regular office copier. To avoid these situations, when viewers do not believe in something historically correct, designers always have to decide how accurate they should be on every single occasion. The same is correct for designing futuristic environments. There is always a risk that a believable gadget (e.g. device based on a completely new technology not widely spread in present days yet) would draw the whole attention to the form rather than content and idea behind it. In this case, a “narrative that focuses too much on the technological gadgetry quickly loses its critical value by no longer providing the provocations that design fiction can offer.” 45

Chapter 6. Installation as a form

Summing up the chapter, I would like to mention again that an installation is a great form of displaying projects of design fiction which could help to experience the narrative. But it also comes with some difficulties, as does every project about the future. So, in the next chapter, I will elaborate on these issues and will discuss what it means to design for the future.

Part II. Instruments

Chapter 7. Nostalgia as a style

Annie Atkins advises everyone who makes prop designs for historical settings to look for an inspiration offline, simply to visit a flea market or an antique shop to find your own historically accurate reference-gems. But what should people do, who design for the far future, if there are no references of it yet? Design that we usually call futuristic is, of course, not a design directly from the future. It is an attempt of a designer, writer, or any other creative to predict how the future will look like. A fully accurate prediction is almost impossible: even if the idea of some technology had been imagined correctly, the shape of it was often pictured whimsical and ridiculous compared to the future we actually got. This phenomenon was named retro-futurism. It is not believable at all, but funny and apparently old-fashioned.

En L’An 2000 [In the Year 2000]. French retrofuturistic image series by artists including JeanMarc Côté.

И мы будем на Луне [And we will be on the Moon]. Moon base in USSR magazine Technology of youth, 1964.

The goal of every designer in design fiction is to create a relatable image of the future. But achieving a truly futuristic look is tricky due to narrow bor-

Chapter 7. Nostalgia as a style

der between futuristic and retro-futuristic appearance. But what we call a futuristic design has nothing in common with actual future as well. Futuristic look is just an impression people expect from upcoming times. Everything sleek and flowy is considered to be “from the future,” but if we look around us we will not notice a lot of this stream-line smoothness. The shapes of objects that surround us are mostly still like they were a hundred years ago. We usually assume a futuristic typeface to be italic, maybe made of continuous line. It worked as futuristic 30 years ago, it works as futuristic now. But in real life we still use Helvetica as a universal typeface. Is it not futuristic as well then? I think futuristic typography works the same as ethnic typography which is often nothing like the culture of origin. It represents the stereotypes that other people have of this culture. But there is a small trick that can help with designing for the near future. Everything in pop culture, as well as in design, follows a spiral. We always return to the good old days in our thoughts. And people from creative industries are not the exception. They are the reason why in the late 2010s we noticed a lot of influence coming from the 80s in visual and audio culture. It was brought to us by the people who were actually born in the 80s. Now they are adults in their 30s to 40s who take the leading roles in all the industries and actively experience nostalgia for their childhood.

Still from a-ha Take On Me music video, 1985.

Still from season three of Stranger Things, 2019. © Netflix

Based on this knowledge, I assume that graphic design trends from 2020 will influence graphic design in 2050. I believe graphic props in the installation would look more expectable and, therefore, relatable if I used current trends as a style direction.

Part II. Instruments

Chapter 8. Artificial intelligence as a content-generator As current trends in graphic design will influence the future, so will the trends in technology change the way we perceive and produce content. Content is information or an experience translated to the audience. It is an essential part of design fiction storytelling, which works in pair with graphic design. New way of consuming information With the constant technological development in the last century, the world accelerated dramatically. When 20 years ago my mother was writing her master thesis, she had to go to a library to get all the information needed for the project from books. This work was hard and extremely time-consuming. Now, to repeat my mother’s journey of gaining knowledge, I need an internet connection and 5 minutes of time to make a quick research on any topic, book, or question and consider whether it interests me. I would go to a library for a book only if it was not possible to find information on the internet or if I wanted to get a special, almost luxurious offline experience of reading from paper. Therefore, the transition to new technologies drastically changed people’s behavior patterns. Nowadays, we have access to an abundance of possibilities and information. In an attempt to experience as much as possible of what today’s world offers, people tend to save time. That is why the content changed as well: it accelerated, shortened, brightened. We do not want to read nor a whole book neither a whole article, we need just a brief and clear answer to the question we have. We also we prefer not to watch long videos to get the message. One of the latest trends in advertising is 6-10 seconds long videos, exactly the length of Instagram Stories.

Chapter 8. Artificial intelligence as a content-generator

If we apply this tendency of consuming more and more information with the highest efficiency and speed possible to the future, we can imagine that reading will become completely a habit of rich people who have time for it, and intelligent people who are prone to critical thinking. I can see that people who do not read much, consume information from pictures. Because the first thing that happens after some breaking news gets published is that millions of memes are created. One does not even need to subscribe to any news portal – having an account on social media is already enough to know what is happening in the world. While it could not be considered a believable source, not everyone seeks the truth. By most people information is consumed for entertainment. New way of producing content Another tendency in technological development is automatization. It led to the wide spread of artificial intelligence in all spheres of life. Artificial intelligence (or shortly AI) is a great helper. We might not notice it yet but it is already possible to create a lot of the content with it. I believe that in the future this technology will become even more popular and common as it develops. I also think that complete automatization is what scares people now. They are afraid that no work will be left for them, if “robots” can do it all. The creative industry, in this case, is under the smallest risk. One cannot exchange creativity with machine learning. But is it true in times of post-postmodernism? Post-postmodernism philosophy usually means the impossibility to create something new because all the ideas have been created and the only new thing an artist can do is a combination of what already exists. Artificial intelligence can combine ideas too. I guess it is not such a big threat but society does not want this “artificial” future. That is why artificial intelligence generated content is a suitable tool for telling my design fiction story in the manner of Defensive Pessimism. While working on Planet B, I discovered a numerous amount of AIs and collaborated with some of them to create the content. It is interesting how many creative functions they already can imitate. Artificial intelligence can generate imagery: portraits of people and animals, landscapes, anime and manga pictures, and memes. They can also generate brand names, marketing slo-

Part II. Instruments

gans, titles, articles, and even nonsense if one needs some. There is an enormous amount of things that can be done by a neural network, but the initiator is still a human. That is why I used the word “collaborate” to explain my work-flow with AI. Nevertheless, I believe that this technology reflects the future of content creation and is the right choice for this project.

Content ideas generator. Source: semrush.com/title-generator © Semrush

Website that generates portraits by generative adversarial network. Source: thispersondoesnotexist.com © Phil Wang

Slogan generator. Source: oberlo.com/tools/ slogan-generator

Chapter 9. Dark patterns as a communication tool

Chapter 9. Dark patterns as a communication tool Every advanced user of the internet knows that advertisements showed online are not random. Capitalism runs the world and digital data of people is analyzed for commercial purposes. Every time one searches for something not in the incognito mode or just browse social media, one’s search history as well as a lot more information are collected. It allows to target users with personalized ads and therefore to raise sales. At a first glance it seems to not be such a bad idea. Carefully selected ads help not only businesses to reach the right client, but also help customers who are looking for a necessary product or service. However, some tech giants know way more than just the search history of the users. And from here it gets scary. Having a lot of various services under their wing, tech corporations can learn almost everything about people: name, sex, age, location, preferred payment method, liked posts, time spent in every app, etc. This private information is analyzed to predict behavior of people online. Knowledge of behavioral patterns in digital space makes it easier to influence people’s decisions. Like offline merchandisers have their ways of tricking people into buying something they do not need, the same tricks exist in digital space and are called ‘dark patterns’ of user experience design. The term was first used in 2010 by Harry Brignull, a user-experience consultant in Britain who helps businesses to develop consumer-friendly products. Brignull started a website, on which he described what exactly the dark patterns are and also their types such as ‘Confirmshaming’, ‘Privacy Zuckering’, ‘Sneak into Basket’ and others. 53 After that, a lot of articles were

Part II. Instruments

written to increase awareness of the problem and many cases of use of dark patterns were revealed by Harry and users themselves via the Twitter account of the project.54 Chris Nodder, UX consultant in Seattle, calls the techniques from which “the company benefits more than the consumer” – ‘evil design’. 55 But because dark patterns are preferably avoided by the most reliable companies and are not recommended by any consultant, they are a perfect tool for a designfictional project of the Defensive Pessimism type. The goal of Defensive Pessimism is to show the inadequacy of the current status quo by providing futuristic scenarios viewers want to avoid. The hyperbolized use of dark patterns in a pessimistic context makes these quite common techniques seem ridiculous and inappropriate, which they actually are. It perfectly demonstrates the concept of the installation and answers its question “What if nothing will change?” If nothing changes and our world does not improve we will be constantly tricked by dark patterns and will be okay with it.

Example of ‘Confirmshaminhg’. Source: twitter.com/darkpatterns © @DMTrzcinski

Chapter 9. Dark patterns as a communication tool

Part III. Documentation

Chapter 10. Planet B Chapter 11. Colonizing Company’s brand identity Chapter 12. Colonizing Company’s digital appearance Chapter 13. Colonizing Company’s printed appearance Chapter 14. Personal belongings

Part III. Documentation

Chapter 10. Planet B

Installation The assumption of Elon Musk that by 2050 one million people will live on Mars triggered me to imagine the kind of future he is trying to create. This is how Planet B was born at the end of 2019. Planet B is the project questioning the ethics of space exploration and design under capitalism. Its goal is to find and expose old colonial patterns that still exist both in visual communication and in the exploration of space. This project aims to contribute to the Decolonizing Design Movement by projecting outdated design standards to the pessimistically painted design-fictional future. The name “Planet B” is a wordplay referring to Mars being proposed as a replacement for Earth, in other words, our plan B. The final form of it is an installation with a diverse range of digital and analog graphic elements. At the center of the installation designed with the help of design fiction lies a diegetic prototype, a design artifact of its time: the brand of the corporation colonizing Mars. The brand is represented through digital and printed appearances and is surrounded by the narrative of other objects. The setting of the installation plays an important role in the narrative as well. The time this scene takes place in October 2050, exactly 30 years from the publishing of this thesis. Its supposed location is in the USA. And it is not accidental. SpaceX is the first example of how, during Obama’s administration, space became a place for the successful collaboration of the govern-

Chapter 10. Planet B

Planet B overview

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ment with the private sector in America, which opens similar opportunities for other companies in the industry.56 In my project, I am speculating on a future, in which humanity gave up on Earth and spent all the resources on space exploration. Environmental conditions became almost impossible for humans to live in, natural disasters were happening more and more frequently. However, scientists came up with the appropriate technological solution to reach Mars and colonize it, making it the only home. There occurred the problem of the capitalistic world: not everyone has enough budget to actually save their lives. The installation itself shows a corner of a Caltech student’s room in Los Angeles, California. We see his desk and a chair where he spends most of the time at home. The owner of the place is not revealed evidently but his presence clearly felt like he just left a few minutes ago. He is a 24 years old lowincome engineering student who won the Red Card lottery, a Martian analog of the US’s Green Card lottery. Now the winner can save himself and move to Mars. And this is what he is going to do. But this decision was the hardest one of his life. He has to leave his family and his closest ones on Earth and hope that some of them win the lottery as well in the years to come. All due to the financial inability of the biggest part of the population to actually buy a ticket. The corner of the room in this situation represents the mental state of the student literally cornered by the circumstances. He is definitely experiencing a lot of different feelings, but the most remarkable one is an unfamiliar homesickness on a multiplanetary scale, which has never been felt before by any of us. In this project, branding and content, marketing instruments themselves, show the ridiculousness of the existence of a postcolonial capitalistic world in the future of design and space exploration. Sarcastically portraying the exact opposite of the future that we strive for, Planet B makes obvious that the current status quo has to change. But the emotional part of the installation is equally important. While perceiving the installation, the viewers may be laughing in the beginning, but going deeper into the meaning of the work and experiencing the narrative, as well as finding hidden connections creates

Chapter 10. Planet B

a melancholic aftertaste. I think that exactly these emotions force us to ask the main question: is this really the future that we want?

Planet B details

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Website I believe it is important to look critically to the future that awaits us in order to be able to correct it in advance. If we do not want any pessimistic scenario to happen, we must act right now. Therefore, I wish more people to know about this project. One of my goals in Planet B was to popularize critique of space exploration and present the problem to a wider audience. For this purpose, I developed a website-documentation of Planet B. The webpage increases the accessibility of the project, that was physically presented just once in the university. The Planet B website contains not only photos of the whole installation but also detailed reviews of each graphic prop presented there accompanied by an explanatory text, as well as some additional materials. The theoretical background of the work – the present thesis – is also openly available on the page. Having the project documented in a web-form would also help to distribute it in the future through digital channels such as social media and to draw more attention to it. It helps to examine the installation more deeply and to communicate the problem.

Planet B website home page

Chapter 11. Colonizing Company’s brand identity

Chapter 11. Colonizing Company’s brand identity Brand communication The central part of Planet B is the brand identity of a private space travel corporation, which has gotten its digital and analog representation in the installation. In my speculative futuristic scenario this is the only company that provides services for Mars colonization. This monopolistic giant is extremely popular in 2050 – it helped already over one million people to settle on the red planet. And it is also going to change the life of the main character of the project, the owner of the room. As Elon Musk inspired me, even provoked me, to do this project, it is clear that he and his businesses are the real-life prototypes of the depicted company. Partly because of the copyright issues, partly in order to create the right impression, I never mentioned his name. Instead, in the project I use the description: “the most famous space-businessman of the first half of the century, who needs no introduction.” It is true that Musk is often depicted as a Messiah of our times. But not mentioning his name openly while listing his accomplishments creates not a Messiah but more of a Voldemort impression – “You-Know-Who” or “He Who Must Not Be Named.” The name of the corporation is also not random. I noticed that Elon Musk always approaches naming with humor. One of his companies is called The Boring Company. It has a funny ambiguity in the name because the company has obviously nothing to do with boredom. Thus to create a parallel with Elon Musk’s naming style I decided to use this existing construction “present participle + company” because of its variability and a potential to create a consistent brand architecture of the corporation.

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The Boring Company logotype © TBC

The first tweet of Elon Musk with words Occupy Mars where he mistakenly used a photo of the Moon instead of Mars. Source: @elonmusk

Based on the working title of the project, Moving to Mars, the first idea for the corporation’s name was “Moving Company.” But while discovering ethical issues in space exploration and visual communication I rejected the idea for not expressing the problem strongly enough. Soon after having a tweet of Elon Musk with the picture “Occupy Mars,” I instantly gained inspiration – it was such an insensitive call to action yet it was taken positively. The option “Occupying Company” was reflecting my view more correctly, but still lacked strength as it had some associations with military. In my opinion, the name had to be ridiculous but also usual. That is how I came up with “Colonizing Company.” We all know that colonization was bad but it is still a normal word that is easily applied to our future without any second thought. Colonizing Company is a synonym of “tyranny of normalcy.” Colonizing Company Inc. is a big corporation including Colonizing Company itself, Selling Company, Streaming Company, Printing Company etc. The appearance of these similar names everywhere in the installation creates the impression of a corporation that owns almost the whole world. It reminds a little of tech giants who nowadays provide multiple services under sub brands’ names but still representing the parent brand. To make clear the main idea of Planet B, that colonial patterns are no longer adequate in any sphere of life, I needed to depict Colonizing Company in an obviously caricaturing way. Yes, it has to remind us of the capitalist system we live in nowadays, but it also has to make it seem strange in the future. That is why I have created a particular tone of voice (TOV) of the company.

Chapter 11. Colonizing Company’s brand identity

While Colonizing Company Inc. proclaims to be a great corporation providing life-changing experiences, in fact, it is a profit-oriented and brand-centred capitalistic giant which has an arrogant, stupid, loud, selling, ridiculous and stereotypical TOV.

Привет всем, у кого дороже [Hi to everyone whose prices are higher] © Burger King

Catchy slogans are a great instrument to translate this impression. My inspiration for this step was the aggressive marketing campaigns of Burger King Russia. Their team created provocative and shocking ads, often directed against their competitors on the market. The positive effects of using this narration style are instant hype around the company and better memorability of the brand. I think the more provocative the slogans are, the stronger they are. To create slogans for Colonizing Company, I used slogan generators – neural networks combining existing slogans and changing key-words in them. I could divide the results into three categories: generic, inspiring, and provocative, ridiculous slogans. While generic ones were as expected not strong and distinct enough, I have chosen all the slogans from the ridiculous category and some of the inspiring ones that had a sarcastic subtext like in “Colonize. Old traditions, new opportunities.”

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Colonize. Make your vacation last forever Colonize. Respecting reach traditions This is not your Father’s Mars colonization. This one is real Obey Your Colonizing Company Mars for when it’s quitting time Stop feeling guilty, we’ve got Planet B Are you a housewife or a universe conquistador?

Chapter 11. Colonizing Company’s brand identity

Brand identity No brand can exist without a brand identity. It is an identification mark and the face of a brand. For Colonizing Company it is extremely important to appear trustworthy and secure while, in fact, the service they are providing is ethically questionable. Therefore, to show this contradiction in branding, I applied the Western graphic design standard. The issue linked to using the universal Western style is that it is not as neutral as it seems, and that it does not leave space for different approaches in design, being the only “norm.” Because Planet B is a design-fictional project of the Defensive Pessimism type, I am showing the opposite of the future we would like to live in. This means the graphic design of Colonizing Company has to be also colonized. As a reference, I used the famous corporate identity of NASA created in 1975, which first proposed the “Worm” logo. Nowadays, this identity based on the Helvetica typeface became popular again, although not used by NASA anymore. The brand book is actively replicated and sold as a souvenir, a monument to Swiss design as well as capitalism. I decided to use the vibe of NASA ’75 in Colonizing Company’s identity because it provides a feeling of inheritance and, therefore, security coming from a governmental agency with a long successful history.

NASA “worm” logotype by Danne & Blackburn, 1975 © NASA

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Worm 2. The first visual identity direction for Colonizing Company.

Colonizing company

Globes. The second visual identity direction for Colonizing Company.

Chapter 11. Colonizing Company’s brand identity

Footprint. The third visual identity direction for Colonizing Company.

In the logo itself, I wanted to incorporate the controversial meaning of Mars colonization. I started with three potential directions of Colonizing Company’s logo. The first one, Worm 2, was a combination of NASA’s and The Boring Company’s logos, where the first letter “C” occupied “O” and made a black hole out of it. In the second draft, Globes, I depicted an idea of Colonizing Company destroying one planet after another. The black planet on the left represents the Earth and the volumetric planet on the right stands for Planet B – Mars, which is still alive. The third direction, Footprint, shows the idea of humans imprinting themselves everywhere they appear. It is not always negative, but inevitable and often thoughtless. All of these ideas have their strengths and weaknesses, thus, I merged them into one to create the strongest essence.

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The final version of the Colonizing Company logotype.

The final logotype of Colonizing Company combines NASA-like typography, the Soya typeface by the Good Type Foundry, a destroyed planet, and imprinting. It consists of the wordmark “Colonizing Company” and an icon – the black circle representing a destroyed planet. The wordmark can be used separately from the icon as well as in the lockup system. In this system, the word mark is partly placed onto the icon, imprinted on it, although the icon can be any size. When not used in the lockup system, the icon may not intersect with the wordmark but should be present in the format anyway.

The wordmark and the icon in the lockup system.

The wordmark and the icon used separately.

Chapter 11. Colonizing Company’s brand identity

CMYK 0 95 100 0

CMYK 60 40 40 100

CMYK 0000

RGB 244 0 0

RGB 000

RGB 255 255 255

The color scheme of the brand also reminds of NASA. The main colors are red, black, and white. However, the hue of red is more bright and orange. Depending on the color of the background, the wordmark of the logo is painted white or red, but the icon must remain black with only one exception – when used in the Mars Colonization Guidebook. The main brand typeface is Soya by GTF, the secondary typeface is Neue Haas Grotesk, the ancestor of Helvetica. Soya is mostly used for Call-to-Action messages and sometimes for titles. All the remaining information is organised in a hierarchy with the help of various sizes and different styles of Neue Haas such as medium, regular and light.

SOYA MEDIUM Neue Haas Grotesk Display 65 Medium Neue Haas Grotesk Display 55 Roman

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The layout is usually divided into three columns, two of which are given to the large display text and the last one to an important information set in a small type size. This division of the information imitates the documents and texts, that are “designed to be unread” as the terms and conditions of ITunes or legal information on financial services’ ads. 57

Example of a typical 3-columns layout in the style of Colonizing Company.

Graphic brand elements of Colonizing Company include the icon – a black circle of all sizes in various positions - but also some other elements that are currently on trend. As the style chosen for the project is 2020 nostalgia, I tried to predict which tendencies will become popular again in 2050 or just continue being in use until that time. I noticed that button-shaped elements (even in printed media), outlines, texts placed on ribbons, and rounded corners are on trend at the moment. I used these simple tendencies in the corporate identity of Colonizing Company because together they make an impression of a trendy and futuristic yet very Western “universal” design. As for the photo style, the used images are divided into two categories: product pictures and users portraits. Product photos prevail in all sorts of content while people are depicted rarely and with the only purpose to show the excitement of using the service. Among product photos there are photos

Chapter 11. Colonizing Company’s brand identity

of actual items for purchase as well as images of space, spaceships and the process of colonization. All the photo materials look minimalistic with plain backgrounds and often very calm colors. Sometimes photos are edited and parts of the picture get pixelated. Usually it is the background or parts of the picture that represent the past in the opinion of Colonizing Company.

Photo style of Colonizing Company

Photo editing style of Colonizing Company

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Chapter 12. Colonizing Company’s digital appearance Colonizing Company’s main product is a ticket to Mars and the following transfer of a passenger. To sell the product to a user, the company goes through a particular process which I visualised in a journey map. In 2020 the journey map of Colonizing Company would look like this. It includes four key goals that have to be achieved in order to make a client happy: engage, convince, sell, and provide. On this graphic scheme I listed the channels which can help achieve those goals. Although some of them will probably be rudimental in 2050 like classic television, others will still be topical 30 and even 60 years later such as websites. Journey Map of Colonizing Company reaching its client in 2020

1. Engage

2. Convince

3. Sell

4. Provide

TV Internet Social media Out-of-home Press Influencers Customers

Website App TV-show SoMe Podcast Newsletter Consultations Workshops Print

Landing page E-Commerce websites Office

Ticket delivery Hot-line Chat-bot Support Training program Space flight Collect feedback Merchandise

Chapter 12. Colonizing Company’s digital apperarance

Despite fulfilling the primary function of being a marketing instrument of Colonizing Company, the website is also a piece of an internet artwork, the webbased element of Planet B. Through the website prototype presented in the installation, viewers can explore the corporation and find hidden colonial patterns in design and space exploration themselves. The organisational structure of the website is a simple hierarchical model, which has a main parental page “Home” and the five child pages “Shop”, “Lottery”, “About”, “Contacts” and “My Account”. Structure of the Colonizing Company website

Home

Shop

Payment

Lottery

About us

Conatcts

My account

My Red Card

Red Card activation

FAQ

404

The main page serves the purpose of convincing a future client in the necessity of the purchase, and of selling the product. Therefore, the design of it is based on a typical landing page explaining the qualities of the product (in this case the ticket to Mars) with repeatedly appearing call-to-action messages and links to the shop with appeals to buy the Red Card. What users can notice from the first look is that Colonizing Company is not ashamed of such Dark Patterns as ‘Confirmshaming’ and, if one actually finds and reads the legal note, ‘Privacy Zuckering’ as well. The “Home” page tells us a lot about

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The first screen of the “Home” page of the Colonizing Company website.

the system of discrimination and oppression created by Colonizing Company Inc.. Colonizing Company provides different qualities of services depending on the price of the ticket. Of course the most expensive offer – Level A – is the most advertised one. But the Level C services look more like a legalized type of slavery rather than the blessing of survival and excitement of moving into the new world. This information is to be found on the “Home” page as well as in the “Shop,” that is why it is recommended to take time for exploring the project, because it is not what it seems at first sight. The “Shop” page means to sell the main product – the Red Card – but also merchandise. Secondly it shows us the predicted level of inflation of 30 years later – I imagine it to be 100% compared to todays prices. There are also a few internal technical pages bound to the shop: “Payment” and “Confirmation of the purchase” pages. The next page, dedicated to the Red Card lottery, briefly explains some points about the lottery, gives an opportunity to participate in it, and a possibility to win the Level C Red Card. The photo of a person of color on top of the page is not an accident and also not a sign of using fake diversity for more profit – it is simply because Colonizing Company shares the opinion that POC can

Chapter 12. Colonizing Company’s digital apperarance

Level A advertisement on the “Home” page of the Colonizing Company website.

never afford buying a ticket. The “Lottery” page is not considered the most important one among other child pages and is not as highlighted as the “Shop” page is.

“Shop” page of the Colonizing Company website.

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“Lottery” page of the Colonizing Company website.

The “About Us” page of the Colonizing Company website is meant to convince users of the greatness and importance of the corporation. It describes very precisely the inspiring mission and values of the corporation, its glorious history and main milestones, yet tries to sell the ticket in the meanwhile. On the page we can see the managing board of Colonizing Company which is predominantly male and white. It reflects the current problematic gender and racial ratio in the industry and questions its normality. It is hard to imagine but all the photos used for this section were made with the help of artificial intelligence. On the “My account” and on “My Red Card” pages, viewers may find surprisingly detailed information about the student who won the lottery. On the “FAQ” page, Colonizing Company answers only the questions about purchasing but nothing really important. The page “404” appears every time a user wants to know more information than he is allowed to. All of these shady moves and design methods make a user think about the normality of such a service and provider. The Colonizing Company website and the company did not invent anything new, they hyperbolize the existing status quo in graphic design and space exploration up to the most annoying point. This website is the quintessence of the discriminative colonial patterns in use.

Chapter 12. Colonizing Company’s digital apperarance

Managing board of Colonizing Company on the page “About us”.

“My Red Card” page of the Colonizing Company website contains information about the attachement of the main character to the Earth including all of his relationships.

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“FAQ” page of the Colonizing Company website.

“404” page of the Colonizing Company website.

Chapter 12. Colonizing Company’s digital apperarance

Footer of the Colonizing Company website.

While the Colonizing Company webpage is the face of the project, the Planet B website is its explanatory inside part. The two pages are linked together and are published on one domain – colonizing.company. To get from the Colonizing Company web-prototype to the documentary page Planet B, a user has to scroll any page until the footer and press the button “About the project.”

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Chapter 13. Colonizing Company’s printed appearance As I have already mentioned in the previous chapter, Colonizing Company goes through four stages of the Journey Map to realize its product and services: engagement, conviction, sale, and provision. The printed appearance of Colonizing Company is created to provide the service to a customer. Colonizing Company is not only loud and massive but also luxurious. Their services are enormously expensive, therefore, they aim to create a special experience for those who paid more. That is why the main product of Colonizing Company, the Red Card, is delivered to the client as a part of the specially designed Colonizer Starter Pack. The Colonizer kit is a toolbox for Mars colonization. It comes to a customer in a premium package – a suitcase for the future space travel – and literally tells way more about the offered services than the website – people also have to pay for the information. The appearance of the toolbox says a lot about the company as well. Every design and word choice made by me during the production of the kit is intentional. All of the solutions were found according to the impression, graphic props needed to make. Overpackaging and the use of non-eco-friendly materials show that Colonizing Company does not care about the environment that much after all. It represents the luxurious arrogance we can often see in the brands of the premium segment. The Colonizer Starter Pack is contained in a steel box wrapped with a branded paper ribbon. The ribbon says that we should not worry because “we’ve got planet B.” This line is often used in Colonizing Company’s communication.

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Colonizer Starter Pack

The first thing the client sees after he removes the paper ribbon and opens the box is a compliment card in case the ticket was bought or a greeting card if the ticket was won in the lottery. In the kit presented in the installation, the character received a greeting card where he, “dear 00006721730,” was congratulated on winning. Nameless greeting shows again that Colonizing Company focuses more on its product rather than on its customers. From the text, we learn that there are already more than 10 billion people living on Earth, and only one thousand applicants win the Red Card Lottery every two years. However, on the backside of the card, Colonizing Company Inc. is trying to sell its products again, this time through Selling Company.

Greeting card

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The next piece of the Colonizer Starter Pack is the Red Card itself attached to the carton cardholder. The Red Card is made of transparent acrylic glass with a personal QR-code printed on it. The Card plays the role of an ID, a Martian visa, the ticket to the spaceship, and the key to any door on the spaceship or in the colony on Mars that is allowed to be accessed with the card of the current Level. On the cardholder, we can find the number of the Red Card which is a code representing the exact date of the flight, ordinal number of the passenger on the ship, and his Level.

First three elements of the Colonizer Starter Pack: greeting card, the Red Card and a business card

The Red Card cardholder

The QR code on the Red Card leads to “My Red Card” website page.

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Business card with contacts of a personal sales representative

Under the ticket, there is a business card with contact information of the personal sales representative as well as a promotional sticker pack with a call to buy more merchandise on the website of Colonizing Company.

Promotional stickerpack

The last part of the Colonizer kit is a Mars colonization guidebook – a 24 pages brochure explaining in detail the exact journey after purchasing or winning the ticket. It starts with the history of Colonizing Company, then reveals how

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the Red Card works and also tells more about the colony. Colony 1 is a Martian habitat founded and built by Colonizing Company. Its name simply means “the first colony”, which leaves space for further establishing of colonies on Mars and on other worlds. It functions as a state but is managed by Colonizing Company Inc. The ruler’s title in the colony is Director. Its flag is designed especially for space where radiation makes every color white. It is initially a fully white cloth with a round cut-out in the middle representing the icon of Colonizing Company. Later on in the brochure, all the necessary procedures, baggage rules, the spaceship model, the exact process of departure and arrival are explained. Advertisements are also included in the

The second most important element of the colonizer kit is a Mars Colonization Guidebook.

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guidebook. They have the same look as other content not to annoy but to engage clients to buy more products. As a part of the diegetic prototype in this design-fictional project, the Colonizer kit narrates the common story of the world through its many pieces. From the first sight, the Colonizer Starter Pack makes an impression of a thoughtfully designed premium toolbox for colonization. The contents of it are consistent, natively promoting goods that Colonizing Company Inc. aims to sell. But the material used for most of the printed items (the cardholder, the greeting card, the business card, and the cover of the guidebook) is a metallic shimmer paper that looks more like a spacecraft material than real paper. It has a fancy, futuristic, but at the same time unnatural and unfriendly cosmic look. From the Colonizer Starter Pack we learn that, while the Earth is overpopulated, the new Martian world is extremely commercial. Colonizing Company Inc. is not only discriminative, but horribly capitalistic, brand-centered, and not interested in any environmental changes on Earth.

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Chapter 14. Personal belongings

While Colonizing Company and its appearances form the core of the installation, they are still surrounded by other objects and graphic props. Additional items make the setting and the narrative of the speculative future clearer, so there is no need to read this whole thesis in order to understand the artistic work. But most importantly, their purpose was to provoke the emotions of viewers. All of the props are personal belongings of the room’s owner and are not connected to Colonizing Company directly, therefore they needed distinct graphic styles and also a special content based on their purpose. Newspaper Will be analog reading still a thing in 2050? Will people read newspapers? What will they be interested in? I asked myself the same things and tried to imagine the answer to these questions. The Future Times is a newspaper from San Francisco, the capital of Silicon Valley, and the city where the headquarters of Colonizing Company is located. Its name is a sarcastic reference to The New York Times, The Moscow Times, and any other …Times in the world. The newspaper is a typical tabloid with yellow titles masking itself under a serious broadsheet format. Maybe it was a broadsheet back when it was first issued, but people did not used to read that much anymore so it became a 4-pager filled with images and ads. With the design of the newspaper I am trying to predict how people’s reading behavior might change in 30 years. But the content is important for the nar-

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Cover of The Future Times newspaper

rative too as it opens the window to the world we are looking at. On the first page we see a cover story dedicated to the British monarchy. Half of the page is filled just with gossip – another half is a quirky picture related to the article. From the text we learn one important rule of Colonizing Company: “no man under the age of 18 years is allowed to be transported to the Colony 1.” On one hand, it sounds realistic because children might not be able to survive the increase of g-forces during the lift-off. On the other hand, it is quite a pessimistic scenario considered the Earth may collapse any time soon. The second page is given to a section called “Meme news.” It is exactly what you would think it is: news told within memes. Memes are a good tool for telling information. But what if it became the official way of telling the news? The Future Times proposes memes with titles as a way to tell the important information. From my point of view, the problematic of creating memes is that they are understandable only within a specific context. If someone did not watch Spiderman, it would be hard for him to understand jokes based on it. For this person the meme will be just some picture with description which does not make sense. As I have completely no chance to know which memes will exist in 2050 I had to imitate the process of their creation. I found a few ran-

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dom unpopular funny photos and added some random titles. The combination of the title and the picture does not mean anything, but human brain always

Inside pages and the back cover of The Future Times

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tries to find connections. So everyone who sees these memes in 2020 will find his own reason to laugh at the future times. On the third and the last page with information, readers can find two articles. The longer one tells a little bit more about future technologies. Scientists may be inventing something important in 2050, but what people want to read about are anime start-ups. No surprise that a depressing article about wildfires is the smallest and is printed on the corner of the newspaper. On the back cover, Colonizing Company bought a product-placement. It is not the first ad the viewers will see in the installation. We notice mentions of this corporation here and there, native ads are in every text. It gives a viewer the feeling that in this speculated future everything is owned by Colonizing Company. Calendar and to-do list “October 2050,” states the text set in an extra-bold typeface on top of the calendar sheet. Through this graphic prop, the viewer is immediately transported to the future. This calendar is hanged onto a magnetic whiteboard. Similar boards are often used by people in the tech industry for making notes, brainstorming, and hanging papers. That was the reason to choose this item for the installation over the usual corkboard. The calendar is issued by the California Institute of Technology as a souvenir for the class of Space Engineering ’50, where the character is enrolled. From this interior detail, a calendar on a whiteboard, a viewer can learn the schedule of the student as well as his nearest plans. The to-do list written by hand on the board reveals that he has a family, a girlfriend, a dog, and some friends on Earth. The same information could be found in his Red Card. Colonizing Company knows all the details of his personal life, which could be scary for people nowadays who are concerned about the safety of their data.

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The Future Times as a part of Planet B

The calendar and the to-do list in the installation

His plans for October are quite sad. The character has to leave all of his closest ones on Earth, and this month is the last chance to say goodbye to everyone. He plans to take his dog named Buddy to a shelter as no one can take care of him, throw a farewell party with his friends and family, and sign out of the university. The stakes are so high that even studying in Caltech is worth quitting if one is offered to move to Mars. The farewell gathering point in this story is extremely important for me personally. Being an immigrant myself I had the experience of telling everyone that I am leaving: my grandparents, my parents, my friends. Some of them were happy for me, some of them were upset. For me saying goodbye was not hard at all, because it was just “see you next time” not “goodbye forever.” I am not sure if I would leave if I knew that I would never come back and never see these people again. The to-do list and calendar are designed with the purpose of reminding viewers of homesickness. I think humanity has almost forgotten about this feeling. Nowadays technology helps us to smooth the experience of being far from the familiar, up to the point where the change even goes unnoticed.

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But interplanetary immigrants will face a homesickness that is not possible in today’s world. The homesickness on an enormous multiplanetary scale. Cider This melancholic feeling continues also in the other items presented in the installation – e.g. the cider package. From the amount of scattered empty bottles, viewers can tell that the room’s owner is definitely feeling down lately. Perhaps he drinks to make the sadness of the last days on Earth go away. Or maybe it is his favorite drink that will not be available on Mars at all. The name of the product, “Lemon tree,” is a reference to a song with the same name by Fool’s Garden. The song was written in 1995 but has a typical 60s melody, which confirms my observation about nostalgia in culture, in music and in the movie industries. Retrospective sound lets a listener go back in time in his memories. It is a very nice feeling that people also seek when they are feeling homesick, a soothing sense of familiarity. But even without the song context, words like “lemon tree” remind me of home. My brain plays an association game with me: lemon tree – garden – grandma – childhood.

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Cider bottles as a part of the installation. Front label of the Lemon Tree cider. The QR code on the back label leads to the Planet B website.

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I used to spend summers at my grandma’s countryside house. Remembering it is something extremely simple yet so surprisingly calming. The graphic style of the package also reminds about the 60s – the happy time when space was a desirable place, and humanity was all into its heroic exploration. The design evokes warm, nostalgic feelings about Earth. Within this graphic prop, homesickness evolves into nostalgia, exchanging the negative melancholy with a positive one. It is what people do to cope with homesickness: they look for what is familiar and try to stay positive. When life gives you lemons, you make lemonade. But what if there are no lemons on Mars?

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Planet B. Colonial patterns in visual communication and space exploration

Conclusion

When it comes to explaining what this project is about, I never know how to start. For me, it is about everything. It is not just another design fiction, it is personal. I have started to work on Planet B with excitement about moving to Mars. While researching more on the topic, I realized that it is more complex and versatile than I thought. My point of view changed completely when, after discovering the homesickness theme, I continued to find more and more ethical critique on space exploration. Some of the points, like aesthetic or linguistic, were underestimated and not well-known in society. That is why I set myself a goal to reveal all the ethical issues of space exploration in order to increase the awareness of the problems. I have found some connections and came to a single cause of all the issues. These were still existing consequences of the Colonial era. They have a dramatic impact on all the spheres of life. No matter whether it is rocket science or art, we still can notice the same imperialist colonial patterns in them. The oppressing western graphic design “standard” and the terraforming of Mars have all the same roots. The capitalist system is the main sponsor of colonization, racism, cultural appropriation, and many other issues. It created the system of oppression that I find necessary to debunk. That is why I think it is important for designers to decolonize their design practice and thus, to start changing the inadequate norm. The final form of Planet B is an installation with a diverse range of digital and analog graphic elements. It is a design-fictional project of the Defensive

Conclusion

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Pessimism type which speculates on pessimistic scenarios of the future to improve design ideas. Within this project, I accomplished the initial goals and found colonial patterns in visual communication and space exploration, attempted to increase the awareness of this problem through the documentation website, and contributed to the Decolonizing Design Movement by bringing the topic of design under capitalism to a broader discussion. I hope Planet B may offer a different perspective on the ethical issues of space exploration and also on colonial patterns in visual communication. With this project I do not claim that we need to stop exploring space or that a settlement on Mars is overrated. On the contrary, I believe they are absolutely worth it, and I am still excited. Curiosity and perseverance are gorgeous qualities of humanity. My point is that we need to stop, have a look around, and rethink our attitude to life, including space exploration and visual communication. Do we want our future to be shaped into the familiar colonial form, full of disrespect and greed? Or do we want the world to be a better place inhabited by a conscious and mindful species that does no harm to anyone and anything around them?

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11. Nelson, Mark. Biosphere 2: What Really Happened? Dartmouth Alumni Magazine. May–June 2018. Retrieved June 28, 2020, from dartmouthalumnimagazine.com/ articles/biosphere-2-what-reallyhappened

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46. Markussen, Thomas, Knutz, Eva. The poetics of design fiction, ACM, 2013, p. 231. 47. Installation Art. Tate. Retrieved August 16, 2020, from www.tate.org. uk/art/art-terms/i/installation-art 48. LoBrutto, Vincent. The Filmmaker’s Guide to Production Design, Allworth Press, 2002, p.21. 49. LoBrutto, p. 27. 50. LoBrutto, p. 73.

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51. Bleecker, Julian. Design Fiction: A short essay on design, science, fact and fiction. Near Future Laboratory, 2009, p. 7. 52. Drumm, Perrin. So You Wanna Design for the Movies? AIGA Eye on Design Magazine. March 5, 2020. Retrieved August 17, 2020, from eyeondesign.aiga.org/so-you-wannadesign-for-the-movies 53. Brignull, Harry. Types of Dark Pattern. Dark Patterns. Retrieved August 18, 2020, from darkpatterns. org/types-of-dark-pattern.html 54. @darkpatterns.

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55. Singer, Natasha. When Websites Won’t Take No for an Answer. The New York Times. May 14, 2016. Retrieved August 18, 2020, www.nytimes.com/2016/05/15/ technology/personaltech/whenwebsites-wont-take-no-for-ananswer.html 56. Grush, Loren. Obama’s NASA made strides on commercial space, but stumbled on exploration. The Verge. January 19, 2017. Retrieved August 19, 2020, from www.theverge.com/2017/1/19/ 14211964/obama-administrationnasa-legacy-private-sector-moonvs-mars 57. Pater, p. 56.

Vasilisa Aristarkhova Visual Communication ’20

University of Art and Design Linz

Planet B is an installation with a diverse range of digital and analog media elements. This project explores colonial patterns both in space exploration and visual communication and aims at widening the discussion around the colonialism in these spheres. The goals of the project are to detect existing colonial patterns, draw more attention to them, and contribute to the Decolonizing Design Movement. Within the installation Planet B, I tried to imagine what will happen if nothing changes and the world will not be closer to decoloniality than it is right now, as well as to answer the question of how this colonial past can influence and shape our future. The project shows the inadequacy of the current status quo in space exploration and graphic design. It gives a new perspective on the issue and allows us to look at our biases from a different point of view – from the year 2050.

Planet B. Colonial patterns in visual communication and space exploration

Planet B. Colonial patterns in visual communication and space exploration

Articles inside

Conclusion

Chapter 14. Personal belongings

Chapter 13. Colonizing Company’s printed appearance

Chapter 12. Colonizing Company’s digital appearance

Chapter 11. Colonizing Company’s brand identity

Chapter 10. Planet B

Chapter 9. Dark patterns as a communication tool

Chapter 8. Artificial intelligence as a content-generator

Chapter 7. Nostalgia as a style

Chapter 6. Installation as a form

Chapter 5. Design fiction as a method

Chapter 4. Decolonization of design

Chapter 3. Space exploration in art and culture

Chapter 2. Ethical critique on space exploration

Chapter 1. History of space exploration

Introduction