04 March 2012

Design Fiction ~ Sterling on Visual Futurism...

Thanks to MIT colleague Michael Schrage for spotting Torie Bosch's Slate piece Sci-Fi Writer Bruce Sterling Explains the Intriguing New Concept of Design Fiction. She asks "So what is a design fiction?" Sterling responds...
"It’s the deliberate use of diegetic prototypes to suspend disbelief about change. That’s the best definition we’ve come up with. The important word there is diegetic. It means you’re thinking very seriously about potential objects and services and trying to get people to concentrate on those rather than entire worlds or political trends or geopolitical strategies. It’s not a kind of fiction. It’s a kind of design. It tells worlds rather than stories."
Read the rest of interview and sample here one of Sterling's favorite design fiction videos on the Robot Readable World... This is cool idea from Sterling to label it thus. Although Slate's calling it "an intriguing new concept" is a bit much in light of "mockups" and "special effects" and the kinds of stuff futurist-designers like Syd Mead or Chesley Bonestell or Ralph McQuarrie (RIP) have done for decades.

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