Speculative Design Ch. 2 + 3 - Response

Ch. 2 of Speculative Design really helped me get a more comprehensive design of speculative design and its significance/potential. The chapter talked about stepping away from "industrial production," "the marketplace," and the realm of the possible to arrive at new ideas, which made me realize how limiting the industry is. When people design simply with profit in mind, it greatly limits the scope of ideas to ideas that have been "proven" to work. This reminded me of a few semesters ago when I was taking a class on video game industry, where the problem of diversity (in triple-A games) was discussed. Many triple-A games follow the same formats/themes to maximize profit and minimize loss, since the cost of production is so high. But indie games tend to be more diverse and unconventional because they're less restricted by the "marketplace." Similarly, designing with reality in mind is also limiting, so this chapter really helped me see the value of designing for "unreality".

Ch. 3 emphasized the idea of the marketplaces effect on design further, but pointed out that consumers play a large part in determining what becomes reality: "We get the reality we pay for," which is exactly the problem with industry. Designers, creators, etc. that are focused on profit will design something that is going to appeal to the masses. If more people designed without this criteria in mind, then our "reality" would likely become less homogenous. Another interesting idea this chapter talked about was "Dark Design." A quote that really stood out to me was "It is more about the positive use of negativity, not negativity for its own sake but to draw attention to a scary possibility in the form of a cautionary tale." This made me think of dystopian novels, films, works, etc., and put into words why I enjoy dystopian stories so much. It also made me realize that I might have done some "dark design" in my own personal work. One particular work that came to mind was this photoshop edit I did where I featured the Hudson Yard's Vessel surrounded by giant robotic bees that were being handled/ridden by beekeepers. I felt that it was ironic that the Vessel resembled a beehive, yet its existence suggests the destruction of nature since it is a manmade structure taking up space that could be designated to plants and other natural material. This led me to the greater idea of the mechanization of nature as a whole, and I theorized a future where bees went extinct, and had to be replaced by robotic ones. It was very interesting to hear about dark design since it's something that I've sort of done before, but didn't know about.