Speculative Design is being used more and more by designers as a technique to convey future messages in a tangible we can imagine today. What might it feel like in this future? What could we see around us, what could we hear? These are some of the question’s designers wish to answer, speculatively, in order to experience this future that is inevitable regardless. How is this done? To make something that doesn't exist seem so real in our world today, designers drum-up fictional stories. But that's not enough. Artefacts are also designed and produced to go in conjunction with the stories. This way someone is able to touch and feel an item of the future.
Below I discuss some example I researched, and whether or not I believe it to have been effective. The first is a project by Anab Jain. The government of the United Arab Emirates (UAE) invited Anab to help shape their energy strategy up to 2050. Anab used government data to create a large city model which allowed them to visualise many possible futures.
The country officials could not imagine the impact of climate change in the future, so Anab worked in collaboration with a chemistry lab in India and had created approximate samples of what the air would be like in 2030 if the countries behaviour stayed the same.
The country officials where then able to comprehend the devastating effects of the possible toxic air. This was not possible to achieve through raw data. As a result of this, the officials took the appropriate action, hoping to prevent this speculative future, and announced to invest billions into renewable energy. They have changed their policies to mitigate such as scenario!
From this one example of speculative practice, you would be a fool to argue it isn't a useful approach for designers to use to make the world a better place. Of course where are many more example however, the reason I have picked this one is because of the possible global impact this project may have had on the world, in making a country more environmentally friendly.
An example of speculative practice used for data privacy is the 'HyperFace' camouflage bandana that "aims to reduce the confidence score of facial detection". With cities like London being heavily monitored spaces, CCTV cameras flooding every corner, doorway and bus stop, privacy advocates are worried these systems will soon incorporate advance face recognition technology which could track down, and identify, any individual. This is where HyperFace comes in and exploits the way face-recognition algorithms work in order to fool them.
It is definitely interesting to see what designers are achieving in order to control what remaining privacy we hold in the world today. This is an easy way to fool face detection as it only requires you wear it around your neck. It may seem impractical, due to the actual design of the print which looks matrix-y, and the colour may not appeal to most.
Reference list:
TED. (2017) Why we need to imagine different futures | Anab Jain. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PYjWLqE_cfE (Accessed: 19 October 2018).
Bain, M. (2017) New "camouflage" promises to make you unrecognizable to facial-recognition technology. Available at: https://qz.com/878820/new-camouflage-promises-to-make-you-unrecognizable-to-facial-recognition-technology/ (Accessed: 19 October 2018).
Bibliography list:
Mitrović, Ivica. (2016) Introduction to Speculative Design Practice – Speculative. Available at: http://speculative.hr/en/introduction-to-speculative-design-practice/ (Accessed: 19 October 2018).
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