Stay ConnectedThe Near Future Laboratory Podcast is conversations at the vanguard of design, technology, futures, and culture, hosted by Julian Bleecker — founder of the Near Future Laboratory.
https://nearfuturelaboratory.com
https://julianbleecker.com
Support this podcast at https://www.patreon.com/nearfuturelaboratory
Copyright: © Julian Bleecker
This Episode is a rebroadcast of Episode 030 with Tony Dunne and Fiona Raby, preceded and amended with various explications and questions posed to the Chesterbot container of the conversation's semantics.
**Speculative Design Practice**
Tony Dunne and Fiona Raby's design practice has evolved over time. Initially focused on conceptual models, they now also create prototypes. They find models give more creative freedom. Their work with complex technologies like biotech led them to embrace fiction and modeling. The term 'speculative design' emerged from their critical design work engaging science and tech. They value fiction for its own sake, not just for discussing the future or selling concepts.
**Teaching Speculative Design** Dunne and Raby direct the Design Reality Studio at Parsons, teaching posthumanism, quantum theory and designed realities. They collaborate with faculty and choose their own research. They are writing a book on new ideas and approaches in design.
**Interdisciplinarity and Collaboration** Dunne, Raby and Bleecker value letting disciplines interact in surprising ways while retaining disciplinary roots. Bleecker proposes a 'general seminar' where diverse people make sense of ideas together, as Dunne and Raby have long practiced. They hope design, science, tech and industry collaborate more, though science and tech currently do so more than design. **Representing Imagined Futures** They aim to represent imagined futures expanding beyond the typical narrow range. They explore 'impossible objects' and how constraints limit collective imagination. **Recognition and Validation** Dunne and Raby were delighted to receive the Royal Designers for Industry award, valuing its recognition of their trajectory, not just current work. They appreciate the range of practices recognized. Bleecker sees it as validating their creative practice.
Sascha Poflepp was a German artist, collaborator, and friend. We dedicated The Manual of Design Fiction to him. It's important not to forget his contributions to creative thinking and making. In that spirit, I managed to extract the audio tape from a panel I organized at SxSW back in 2010 on the topic of Design Fiction in which Sascha contributed a remarkably clear and cogent perspective through his own work.
Also contributing to the panel were Stuart Candy, Jake Dunagen, Jennifer Leonard, Bruce Sterling, and myself.
You can see Sasha's slides cued to his presentation here: https://youtu.be/XDp_TsKqk3o
Lila Feldman is a designer based in NYC. She received her BA in 3D Design: Product + Furniture from Northumbria University and her MFA in Design + Technology from Parsons School of Design.
https://lilafeldman.com/
Lila and I discussed finding purpose in creative practice and how creativity, imagination, and a futures-oriented mindset can help reinvigorate the potential for bringing about meaningful change through individual as well as team-based design practices.
If you want to hear more of these types of conversations, become a Patron over at https://patreon.com/nearfuturelaboratory.
If you want to read more about creative practice and the approach I use here at Near Future Laboratory, check out all the books and artifacts from the future over at https://shop.nearfuturelaboratory.com, especially "The Manual of Design Fiction" and my follow-on book just released the other day, "It's Time To Imagine Harder: The Reader's Guide To The Manual of Design Fiction". (Plus there's the 10th Anniversary printing of a rejuvinated "TBD Catalog" — the product catalog from the future.
Thanks for listening!
_Julian
If you're curious to hear about what it takes to dream into, create, build, grow, maintain an independent creative studio and practice, you'll want to listen to this conversation with Che-Wei Wang and myself. We talk about the importance of creativity and how it can be used to create meaningful change, and the need for a balance between creativity and structure and how to create an environment that fosters collaboration.
https://cwandt.com
If you want to hear more of these types of conversations, become a Patron over at https://patreon.com/nearfuturelaboratory.
If you want to read more about creative practice and the approach I use here at Near Future Laboratory, check out all the books and artifacts from the future over at https://shop.nearfuturelaboratory.com, especially "The Manual of Design Fiction" and my follow-on book just released the other day, "It's Time To Imagine Harder: The Reader's Guide To The Manual of Design Fiction". (Plus there's the 10th Anniversary printing of a rejuvinated "TBD Catalog" — the product catalog from the future.
Thanks for listening!
_Julian
This episode is a conversation with writer and noted architecture critic Geoff Manaugh, who has written for the The New York Times Magazine, The Atlantic, Wired, The New Yorker, The Guardian, The Financial Times Magazine, New Scientist, Cabinet Magazine, The Daily Beast, Wired UK amongst many other publications.
He also co-authored with Nicola Twilley the book ‘Until Proven Safe: The History and Future of Quarantine, and A Burglar’s Guide to the City on the relationship between crime and architecture. And most recently, a ghost story he wrote called ‘Ernest’ back in 2017 was adapted for film and recently released on Netflix under the title ‘We Have A Ghost’, which was beautiful and fun and clever and I recommend you watch it after listening to this episode.
Don't forget to like, write a review and share the podcast amongst your friends and colleagues, and support the podcast on https://patreon.com/nearfuturelaboratory
Find all of our artifacts from the future, including 'The Manual of Design Fiction' over at https://shop.nearfuturelaboratory.com
Thank you for listening!
Juliana Schneider is a trend researcher, futures designer and creative strategist with diverse and extensive experience in the creative industry. She helps people and businesses make sense of the world around them and build stories and strategies that inspire us to engage with the challenges of a rapidly changing world.
https://julianajschneider.com/
Please support the podcast over at https://patreon.com/nearfuturelaboratory and don't forget to pick up your copy of The Manual of Design Fiction, now in its second printing. Published fiercely independently by Near Future Laboratory.
http://shop.nearfuturelaboratory.com
Thank you!
Dr Delfina Fantini van Ditmar is a biologist, design researcher and Senior Lecturer. Her practice is concerned with ecological thinking, reflective practices, epistemological paradigms and alternative futures.
https://www.rca.ac.uk/more/staff/dr-delfina-fantini-van-ditmar/
Please support the podcast over at https://patreon.com/nearfuturelaboratory
Thank you!
_ Julian
This is a digest of General Seminar S04E01 where Drew Wiberg, Kempe Scanlan and I took about 30 folks into the Futures of Fashion had a look around, and we brought back some Design Fiction artifacts from that future to share with you!
General Seminar is the platform I created for sense-making against the beautiful confusion of all the new 'futuristic' things we confront seemingly every day. So in General Seminar we take on these topics, with none of the hubris that one puts on to try and 'predict' the future, and wander around to see what we see and reflect on the way the world is becoming. I've boiled down 90 minutes to about 45 to give you a sense of some corners of the conversation.
If you want to find out more about General Seminar and all the other things going on over at the Near Future Laboratory join our email list: https://tinyurl.com/nfl-newsletter.
And don't forget — please support the podcast and all the things over at https://patreon.com/nearfuturelaboratory. Your support would be very much appreciated.
Tucker Viemeister is an American industrial designer, and founder of Viemeister Industries in New York City.
Please consider supporting this podcast and joining us here at Near Future Laboratory by getting behind all of this over at https://patreon.com/nearfuturelaboratory
My special guest Dré Labre, proprietor over at https://www.designfictiondaily.com/ discusses how he has been training for the Imagine Harder marathon later this year, and how he uses the new 2023 Work Kit of Design Fiction, which drops in a limited release on April 20th 2023!
https://www.designfictiondaily.com
https://shop.nearfuturelaboratory.com/products/the-work-kit-of-design-fiction-2023-mj-edition
Support the podcast over on Patreon: https://patreon.com/nearfuturelaboratory — every Patron gets a legit invite to the Near Future Laboratory Discord!
Thank you for your listening!
- Julian
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