The first set reading, an interview with sci-fi writer and proponent of design fiction Bruce Sterling, helped in clarifying my understanding of design fiction and its place in the world. As Joshua Tanenbaum also explains on Quora.com, design fiction involves the use of imagined scenarios in order to explore actual design possibilities in the future. From my understanding, DF differs from science fiction in its focus on the actual design and viability of the technologies and materials present in the fictional world. Whilst sci-fi creators simply use these things to propel their narrative, DF is actually more concerned with the gadgets and machines, and explores how they would actually be implemented in the real world.

Sterling provides two videos pertaining to design fiction that particularly interest him. The second video, from Corning, depicts a world in which a new glass technology has become part of virtually every aspect of the society’s everyday life. It is suggested that this kind of technology is capable of integrating communication of information pretty much anywhere. You can send messages from your bathroom mirror, look up recipes on the kitchen bench, and link your smartphone (now made entirely of glass) with a table for even more features.

While part of me was thinking “whoa, cool!” every time a new bit of gadgetry came up in the video, another part of me just kept thinking back to sci-fi films like Minority Report, in which the technology has become so pervasive that surveillance and privacy are a very big problem. As I was reflecting on the possible implications of technology being embedded in your bathroom mirror, I did notice that it brought me back to the difference between design and science fiction. Whilst films like Minority Report used things such as shops tracking individuals’ identities in order to push thematic ideas and notions about institutional control and privacy, the Corning video is not concerned with that. Instead, its approach is reversed. It shows the technology, and it is clear that it cares more about how the technology is actually designed and how it works.

Science fiction uses futuristic technology to draw parallels with abstract or thematic concepts in the real world. Design fiction uses futuristic technology to draw parallels with design possibilities in the real world.

Does that make videos like Corning’s world of glass innocent and free of ideology? Perhaps not. As Sterling stated, there is always a degree of overlap possible between design and science fiction. The way we speculate about tomorrow is a clear sign of what’s wrong with us today, but I’m probably going off on a tangent.

EDIT: I’m reading through the second text and it totally brings up ideology in relation to design. I’ll bring that up in the next post. Screw you, tangent.

One more thing to do with the relationship between design and science fiction that I found interesting was the concept of lightsabers, the iconic weapon from the Star Wars franchise. More specifically, I find it intriguing how the lightsaber has become so famous, despite being so technologically unpractical. In his series, ‘Sci Fi Science’, Dr. Michio Kaku explores how one could actually go about creating such a weapon using materials and technologies available to us now.

The video jumps between Kaku searching for physically possible ways to construct a lightsaber and sci fi fans’ beliefs of what a lightsaber should be. When you unpack what the fans are saying, you begin to realise how impossible a “true” lightsaber is. A lot of it is explained away with space magic, with the fans suggesting that there’s just technology that we haven’t discovered yet that can allow us to make lasers that stop in midair and can cut through any material except another laser.

Nevertheless, Kaku persists, examining the fictional device’s properties and capabilities, and eventually ends up with a design which, though still improbable and overly expensive, is much more possible than the one that exists in the Star Wars universe.

Okay, I was going to end this behemoth of a blog post with something witty or poignant but it’s 2:30pm and I want lunch. Adios.