This week in both the “unlecture” and the readings we looked into the idea of design fiction. This is a topic, I’ll admit I hadn’t put much thought into before and was more of a term that I had kind of accepted, not recognised. But now with some sort of explanation provided I find myself overthinking the term to excess! How do people speculate over the unknown? How do you design something that doesn’t exist? On what occasions have fictional designs in the past become reality? Have I ever subconsciously imagined something futuristic and has that something ever become a reality?

With all these questions I have experienced thoughts rushing from science fictions films to my parents continuous comments, “when we were young we would dream about having portable screens that would allow you to speak face to face with someone miles away in real time” (this being a direct quote from my mother who discovered Face Time when my dad travelled overseas last month). These thoughts have made me excited at the prospect of what we imagine or the fictional things we design, in that there could be a good chance of them actually existing in the future. This, however, is at the same time quite confronting when we then consider that some of the things that are imagined are not thought up with positive intentions.

I feel that this is a topic that now it’s there, it will really stick in my mind for sometime. In the interview with Sci-Fi writer, Bruce Sterling, the concept of design fiction as an “interesting new way to think about the future” is introduced. Though I feel that interesting is just scraping the surface when it comes to looking further into this idea as there is just so much to speculate about!