4 minute read
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.
Advertisement
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 – 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 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.
