A Collaborative inquiry

FAQ

Please, feel free to comment, expand and refine this list by asking questions and starting discussions online

FAQ? or rather, speculative FAQ!

• The variety of practices encompassed by the words Design Fiction is vast. As vast as the number of labels gravitating around the notions of design, critique and fiction. What about the future of the field: what if Design Fiction becomes a mother category? (1)
• Design Fiction is deeply rooted in critical thinking. While non-researchers and non-designers/artists show a growing interest for Design Fiction, may one re-use it for non-critical means?
• Extending the previous question, what about such catchy name for a seminar? Does it packages Design Fiction as the next design thinking? (2)

• What if the field stabilises into becoming a discipline? Does institutionalisation bring limiting standards? (3)

(1) This question was formulated in session #1 (September) and addressed in session #4 (December) of the seminar. Fiona Raby gives food for thought in a recent interview: “Design fiction has opened a door that's even let critical design - or the notion of critiquing through design - back in, perhaps more as a subset.” (Dunne, Anthony, and Fiona Raby. “Critical World Building.” In EP / Volume 2 – Design Fiction, edited by Alex Coles, 47–68. Interview by Rick Poynor, 2016. p.61)
(2) The discussion on the confusion between design thinking and Design Fiction is already happening. It was evoked with David Benke in a previous conference in Centre Pompidou (FR). This seminar tries to outpace the problem by creating a space/time to discuss it with researchers, practitioners, design thinking actors, industries, altogether – rather than keeping the discussion locked in academic conferences.
(3) Why not build an “undisciplinary” discipline? Once refined via online (collective and public) discussions, a session of the seminar might address these issues (e.g. what could be a non-modernist understanding of “discipline” for Design Fiction, without borders and frontiers).

An “experimental” seminar?  |  Together with the main topic (Design Fiction), the experimental format-s of the seminar aim-s at exploring, trying out and proposing modes of interaction between design and research. What could be a research-through-design seminar? As a start to investigate this question, the Design Fiction club: happens in a location out from university (4); it does not wear a conventional academic title and will aim at being accessible to any publics (5); it explores various animation, documentation and publication formats (6); an example of this process is to invite so-called “experts and non-experts” to participate on an equal level in the room(7); the enquiry is conducted under various modes, from talks, to meetups, to workshop, to debates (8).

(4) Inspired by Grada Kilomba's Kosmos series in Berlin.
(5) For instance, questions about design thinking VS Design Fiction will be
(6) Working with alumni of the Speap programme which explored this question in MediaLab Science-Po (Bruno Latour, Valérie Pihet, et. al.)
(7) Inspired by J. Rancière’s ”Le Maître Ignorant” and radical pedagogy at large.
(8) The seminar format itself is exploring notions of “undisciplinarity”, echoing note n°3, above.

Design Fiction Club“s”

Contact & Collaborations

Please contact 

Design Fiction Club, is an initiative by Max Mollon, invited by Marie Lechner and Clémence Seurat of Gaîté-Lyrique, in Paris.

You might be conducting similar initiatives, or want to start one in another city. If you want to get in touch, we would be pleased to talk.

Contact | designfictionclub[at]gaite-lyrique[dot]net — join us on the
Follow the news on Twitter or Instagram