Speculative Everything: Design, Fiction, and Social Dreaming

by Anthony Dunne, Fiona Raby

How to use design as a tool to create not only things but ideas, to speculate about possible futures.Today designers often focus on making technology easy to use, sexy, and consumable. In Speculative Everything, Anthony Dunne and Fiona Raby propose a kind of design that is used as a tool to create not only things but ideas. For them, design is a means of speculating about how things could be--to imagine possible futures. This is not the usual sort of predicting or forecasting, spotting trends and extrapolating; these kinds of predictions have been proven wrong, again and again. Instead, Dunne and Raby pose "what if" questions that are intended to open debate and discussion about the kind of future people want (and do not want).

Speculative Everything offers a tour through an emerging cultural landscape of design ideas, ideals, and approaches. Dunne and Raby cite examples from their own design and teaching and from other projects from fine art, design, architecture, cinema, and photography. They also draw on futurology, political theory, the philosophy of technology, and literary fiction. They show us, for example, ideas for a solar kitchen restaurant; a flypaper robotic clock; a menstruation machine; a cloud-seeding truck; a phantom-limb sensation recorder; and devices for food foraging that use the tools of synthetic biology. Dunne and Raby contend that if we speculate more--about everything--reality will become more malleable. The ideas freed by speculative design increase the odds of achieving desirable futures.

Genres: Design, Nonfiction, Art, Art Design, Architecture, Technology, Academic

224 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2013

Reviews

[Vuk Trifkovic · Rating 2 out of 5]

Great ideas, disappointing book. Too much of a survey/catalogue, too little insightful stuff that they have published in other formats.

[Ana · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is damn awesome. Truly "a catalyst for social dreaming".
It is always exciting to find new methods to study things, ways to break the establishment, to truly innovate. This is a fantastic manual on speculative design. A quick read bearing an informed, open-minded and humble voice along its way. It is also quite a fun book with very curious examples (most of which I have to admit to having never seen before). A good book to broaden your horizons, which I recommend to anyone interested in design or any kind of research.

[carolyn · Rating 5 out of 5]

this book was big in scope and complexity but i think what it does really well is convince me of the social weight of imagination… “there is no longer one reality, but seven billion different ones. the challenge is to give them form.”

at first i was stuck on the scale of this public imagining… i was like, concrete actionable solutions were articulated and yet they weren’t?? but then it just clicked “museums can become laboratories for rethinking society, places for showing not what already exists, but more important, what is yet to exist.” (beyond museums - thinking of internet virality and its empirical ability to restructure social attitudes, which is what speculative design is trying to do)

according to the authors, the role of the speculative designer is to be someone who uses the language of design to provoke, challenge, and tease out the imagined futures that the people want. it’s true… we should and can be designing for what this world could be… “for us, this separation from the marketplace creates a parallel design channel free from market pressures and these to explore ideas and issues. these could be new possibilities for design itself; new aesthetic possibilities for technology; social, cultural, and ethical implications for science and technology research; or large-scale social and political issues such as democracy, sustainability, and alternatives to our current model of capitalism.”

in terms of applicability, if anything i feel like this book has simply better equipped me with the vocabulary to approach highly conceptual and abstract 3D art exhibitions, despite the authors’ strict division between art and design. apparently speculative design does not equal social design, so i’m not sure how to move forward with the info from this book… it was very smart and compelling though! very idealistic too, but i tried to take it all in stride

my favorite part was the moment on intentional communities (cults) as harbingers of materializing their own imagined micro-utopias into reality (aka proof you CAN manipulate reality into something that goes against the dominating social consciousness). “whether you view them as charming eccentrics or restless idealists, the creators and users of these devices and environments defy the strict rules western societies place on mixing different kinds of reality… these projects celebrate people’s ability to make their own imaginative worldviews tangible.”

anyways there’s so much more depth to this book than this but it’s… too much! i can’t summarize it all and even this review is a dizzying mess. all the good quotes are highlighted and tucked in my notes app though 🙂

[gaspar · Rating 4 out of 5]

Es esencial entender el diseño como algo con mucho más alcance que "solucionar problemas", "design thinking" o incluso "dar forma al mundo que nos rodea".

Este libro invita a pensar en cómo el diseño puede proponer nuevas ideas e ideales sociales, políticos, tecnológicos y éticos, cómo podemos imaginar no solo el mundo del futuro, sino presentes alternativos, cómo en lugar de diseñar para encontrar respuestas y soluciones diseñamos para plantear preguntas y realidades, y con el propósito último de permitirnos soñar, pensar y, quien sabe, quizás poder cambiar el mundo como lo conocemos.

No hay que leerlo esperando metodologías, un paso a paso o un proceso de diseño claro. Incluso, es en su mayoría un catálogo de proyectos, acompañado de las ideas sobre el diseño de los autores. Pero es un primer paso para soñar y entender porqué es fundamental para diseñadorxs y para la sociedad en general.

[sofi lira s · Rating 4 out of 5]

mi único drama es que esto del diseño especulativo queda siempre muy enmarcado dentro del mundo académico (y digámoslo, tienes que tener plata), y muchos de los proyectos que muestra son reflejo de esa traba.

(cacha Allard, si pude leerlo en dos dias)

[— sab · Rating 3 out of 5]

"it is now easier for us to imagine the end of the world than an alternative to capitalism. yet alternatives are exactly what we need."

[hey there sara · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good over-view of the realm of speculative design. Provides a refreshing view point to the market driven design so prevalent. Touches on many other works and books that are worth exploring.

[Annie Cheng · Rating 4 out of 5]

“Large scale speculative design contests official reality; it is a form of dissent expressed through alternative design proposals.” This was an interesting read. All the talk of using design as a mode to make reality more malleable — and in doing so, catalyze social change — inevitably made me think about early psychiatric imaginaries, wherein the utopian vision of the asylums (which aspired to dream up alternatives to a carceral reality)… clashed with the voice of those deemed insane, whose modes of social dreaming were pathologized as madness. In other words, what allows for speculative thinking to be credited as critical dissent as opposed to being out of touch with reality and therefore either unserious or pathological? Is it just self-reflexivity…? Affiliation with more elite art/design spaces? This is something I wish they had addressed more but otherwise this book really reignited my curiosity

[Avşar · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is the beginning of everything for me. I have built everything I did in academia on the writings and actions of Dunne and Raby. I tried to emulate them and failed, but this failure caused novel and exciting practices to emerge.
This is how the notion of speculative design was established before it was oversimplified and contaminated and pragmatically used to justify even the lamest, most realistic design proposals.

[Ben Field · Rating 4 out of 5]

Pretty fkn sick, couldn’t put this down.
Invites the reader to think about design as a tool for exploration, imagination and experiment. Argues that If we are to surmount the innumerable crises of our age, we must learn to innovate beyond the confines of market ideology. The authors provide a treasure trove of interesting reference work and discuss a wide range of design modalities.

[Yaghika Beniwal · Rating 4 out of 5]

Maybe I understood everything, maybe I understood nothing. But now i know i can stand in front of weird art and call it speculative

[April Ariestania · Rating 3 out of 5]

As many have pointed out, the book offers a great idea: that this is an approach in design where we are not expected to offer tangible solution for today’s world, but it was meant to spark discussions for the possibilities of the new reality.

However, I think it would be better if the author provides more study cases on how we could use this approach like in the last chapter. Honestly I got so lost halfway through because too many design examples to explain a key point. Glad that I finally finished it after like... 2 months?

[Neda · Rating 5 out of 5]

طراحی گمانی مربوط به معنا و فرهنگ است، با افزودن به آنچه زندگی می‌توانست باشد، کارش به چالش کشیدن آنچه هست و ارائه‌ی گزینه‌هایی است تا بتوانند گره‌هایی که واقعیت روی توانایی تخیل ما زده را سست کنند. این نوع طراحی به رویاپردازی اجتماعی سرعت می‌دهد.

عااالی
خواندن این کتاب را به طراحان و هنرمندان پیشنهاد می‌کنم.

خوشبختانه، این کتاب توسط نشر وارش با ترجمه‌ای بسیار خوب، با عنوان، طراحی گمانی منتشر شده است.

[Masoud · Rating 4 out of 5]

در میان نگاه غالب مبتنی بر بازار در حوزه دیزاین، آیا می‌شود به جای حل مسئله با کمک دیزاین، از دیزاین به عنوان مدیومی برای طرح مسئله استفاده کرد؟ مدیومی که به دلیل ملموس و همه‌گیر بودنش باعث تخیل جمعی درباره‌ی دنیاهایی با نظام‌های ازشی دیگری شود؟ چگونه دیزاین متاثر از نظام‌های اخلاقی، اجتماعی، اقتصادی و سیاسی‌ست؟ آیا می‌شود با زبان دیزاین فرضیه‌ پردازی کرد؟ طراح چه نقشی در شکل‌گیری رویکرد ما نسبت به تکنولوژی‌ دارد؟
کتابی که درباره این قبیل مسائل صحبت می‌کند. خواندنش برایم لذت بخش بود و کمک کرد نگاه جامع‌تری به دیزاین و هنر داشته باشم

[Jennifer · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5！

[Kayleigh12345678 · Rating 4 out of 5]

Finished it as part of my essential reading for social narratives. some of the things I saw were crazy. speculative design is so goofy

[Alba Martínez · Rating 4 out of 5]

mu chulo, gracias alba por dejármelo

[pokemonek · Rating 4 out of 5]

ahh millenial positivism, great book i just wish we could still have hope <<3

[Siri Hsu]

概論書，可惜太多自我重複而缺乏對案例具洞見的分析，厚得有點不知所謂⋯。

[Linda · Rating 5 out of 5]

Book provides stimulating and refreshing point of view to the social dreaming and initial understand the speculative design.

[Alicja · Rating 4 out of 5]

Dużo dobrych pomysłów

[Mark Poulsen · Rating 3 out of 5]

Speculative Everything offers a rather well-developed argument for the beginning of a conceptual design practice concerning itself with speculation, imagination, world-building, fantasies, utopians, dystopians, stories, fictional objects, political ideologies etc.
There is a lot to unpack and perhaps this is also where the book falters. While it offers a sympathetic argument: we can use design to speculate, to offer new ideas of what the future can look like (whether improbable or probable; wanted or not-wanted) to make us think, reflect and ultimately make decisions for the future based on a greater capacity to understand where we come from and what we take for granted. But anyway, while it offers a sympathetic argument, it spends most of the time unpacking the large collection of everything speculative in design, art, literature, filmmaking, think tanks and so on. "Speculation" becomes the collective umbrella term, but I have to wonder if all of these works can really be compared just like that. Perhaps.

However, it does establish a design practice that seeks to not improve the "here-and-now) but instead offer variations; imagined variation of futures where our relation to lots of things in our everyday life is changed somewhat, perhaps by the designs themselves, perhaps prior to justify the existence of such designs.

This review is very hastily written, I realise that.
The book spends the first few chapters establishing its "practice", but it is rather unclear about the methodologies, the limits of its use, and I am also rather sceptical towards its underlining moral layer that certainly influences the goals of the practice, but perhaps also undermines the role of criticism in a larger role. In this sense, the book echoes the other related book "Hertzian Tales".
The rest of the book then deals with themes of speculations, often from other fields, and showcases Maaany examples. Worth a read, but you can get most of it from the first few chapters

[Michael · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book had lots of beautiful images and an inspiring message. But it was a little light on analysis. Dunne and Raby distinguish the 'possible', and the 'probable' from the 'fantastic', and then build a theory of speculative design on top of this distinction. But they don't really do the paces with these concepts, so the theory remains quite underdeveloped. Their examples could have provided an opportunity to expand their ideas, but they tend simply to introduce each example and offer an overview of its intention, rather than really get under the skin of each design and pick it apart.

It's a pity, because Dunne and Raby are clearly pretty inventive designers, and their overarching message is beautiful. Like Victorian-era liberals such as John Stuart Mill and Matthew Arnold, they promote eccentricity of personality and spontaneity of intellect. Those are still thrilling values 200 years later, and Speculative Everything demonstrates that the old dream of the free imagination hasn't died yet in the world of art and design.

[Tessa · Rating 4 out of 5]

4 stars: inspiring and educational, though sometimes dense.

The information: this book gives insight in a field of design that I've always found interesting but never really read too much about. It talks about different types of speculative design, different fields, and different topics. Even though quite often, Dunne and Raby's opinions get mixed in, overall I think it's a pretty solid, informative book. A lot of examples are given, unfortunately some don't get any images, so we have to guess what the authors mean or google the project.

The readability: it could be quite dense at points. I've seen the same flaw in other books about art: the authors try to make grand statements about the world, and use expensive words, maybe to make the book seem more science-y.

The structure: chapters flowed into the next ones pretty smoothly, though overall it didn't feel like there was a really clear or rigid structure.

Best part: when Dunne and Raby in depth explained one of their own projects.

[Eva · Rating 4 out of 5]

Same as in Hertzian Tales, Dunn and Raby advocate for designers to be more than just crutches for consumerism. Product design (not the one that actually makes it onto the market, but the one that could be showcased in galleries and on diverse media channels) could join architecture, film, literature, philosophy in imagining possible futures. Yet instead of predicting the future or solving future problems, these designs could be thought experiments that criticize, provocate and stimulate debate. Create multiple "what if" scenarios to make our everyday reality more mallable, so we don't lose track of "what could be" in this one-track consumer oriented world.

[erv · Rating 5 out of 5]

"As Fredric Jameson famously remarked, it is now easier for us to imagine the end of the world than an alternativ to capitalism. Yet alternatives are exactly what we need. We need to dream new dreams for the twenty-first century as those of the twentieth century rapidly fade. But what role can design play?"

Designduon Raby och Dunne vill med denna bok visa vilka möjligheter design kan ha att forma ett annat samhälle än det vi lever idag. Boken handlar om "Speculative design". Boken består av båda deras egna projekt samt exempel på andra projekt som rör sig inom Speculative design. Dem rör sig tvärdiciplinärt, refererar till flera olika områden förutom design och knyter samman.

[chirpingwrens · Rating 2 out of 5]

First, this is super informative on explaining all the nuances of speculative design. If you are new to speculative design, this book is some pretty good stuff! I completely agree with the calls for designers to stray away from marketplace (e.g., capitalism and growth), to a more imaginative designs focusing on people's values, beliefs, ethics, dreams, hopes, etc. I'm also glad that the authors acknowledge the difficulty for designers in the "industry" to practice this type of work, who often work in "probable" spaces. I'm so tired of washed down "pain points" and "user needs" that often lack any sort of emotional value in designs. Design should focus on feelings! Form follows feelings, not function! I miss school lol.

Creating gaps between reality and alternative reality, carefully selecting elements of safety and weirdness to spark discussions among our users (hesitating to say "viewers" at the expense of focusing on art rather than design), are all essential elements of making successful speculative designs. I appreciated all the examples in the books, although the descriptions did not do them justice (looked them up as I was reading along on the internet). Design in this realm is mostly used as a form of critique and social usefulness, which also was a train of thought that reminded me of social entanglement and sociomateriality. I'll be referencing this book in the future for my future projects.

That aside though... there were plenty of ideas that I also did not agree with, due to my own background in critical theories and disability justice. The authors do state that their definition of "critical design" is more along the line of "critical thinking" rather than critical theories, but I think as a critical theorist, that there is an inherent connection that cannot be dismissed - especially in a book about social dreaming. Again, this is my own opinion as a designer who likes to focus on critical theory; I'm not "cancelling" anything, but rather presenting other alternatives to the book's positioning.

I also did not agree with the author's view on avoiding using parody in speculative designs. I refer to queer failures and queer(ing) as a valid critical inquiry, and do question whether speculative designs that use parody, camp, and hullabaloo can be nuanced in their own ways. Whether the dismissive reaction to parody, taking the form from high to low theory can still be a speculative design that does create a rich discussion. Not a fully formed thought there, but hoping I can do more reflection there.

Generally, I agree with the principle that marketplace design influenced by industrial revolution has marred progression of social dreaming designs. However, the authors place heavy emphasis on individual, consumer-based revolution, rather than addressing the issue as an overall social issue. Honestly, I actually think that the authors and I may be on the same page regarding how we view capitalism as a systematic issue. The way they describe individual problems in a form of imagination could be a big social movement including supersets of individuals like clubs, organizations, and governments. I also do agree that consumers do have a lot of power in influencing the market - !IF! they were to all mobilize and act together. In the book, I don't think there was enough acknowledgment of marginalized peoples, who often lack power and are working within oppressed systems. Even if some individuals wanted change, it's damn difficult to make those changes. To quote a world-famous drag queen Trixie Mattel and also introduce some potential low theory into this review, "being gay is not hard, straight people make being gay hard.”

This gets me to topic of WHO is included in these alternate realities created by speculative futures. WHO has the power and are included in discussions of speculative designs? While the designs presented in the book alluded to this question of "who's," I personally am not satisfied due to the lack of acknowledgment of this question. I think this inquiry also begins at places where speculative design is presented to the users/audience. Authors state that their experience of presenting their works at exhibitions and museums which have "become more accessible" have been successful, but I still do wonder who they mean when they say that these places are "accessible." I DON'T think museums and exhibits are still accessible for many people still. Yes, it has improved a lot, but people working in capitalist systems sometimes do not have leisure time to visit museums or exhibits. So who are we preventing from social dreaming, and who is ultimately included in social dreaming?

Also, chapters and content on biotechnology and utopia/dystopic almost borderlined eugenics in some cases? Like... "There is a view that utopia is a dangerous concept that we should not even entertain because Nazism, Facism, and Stalinism are the fruits of utopian thinking. But these are examples of trying to make utopias real, trying to realize them, top down. The idea of utopia is far more interesting when used as a stimulus to keep idealism alive..." Um what??? Again, WHO is being ERASED in these "idealisms"? I don't think these types of stimulus should be allowed, just saying...

So overall super informative, appreciated all the examples, but also lacked levels of critical design from "critical theory" perspectives that I was looking for. Which the authors clearly stated was not in.... but still.

[Kaeley · Rating 5 out of 5]

Anyone interested in critical and speculative design should read this book. Dunne and Raby present their thoughts and arguments clearly with plenty of design work examples shown throughout to inspire and allow for a large spectrum of what critical and speculative design can be. This book really helped to shape my design practice.

[Vadim Smakhtin · Rating 5 out of 5]

There is surprisingly small number of books about design fiction or speculative design. I think we definitely need more, because such books saving design professionals from common cliches in consumer and profit driven world of "modern" and "innovative" design.

[Viola · Rating 3 out of 5]

Era molto tempo che volevo leggere questo libro e avevo delle grandi aspettative.

La prima parte, circa i primi tre capitoli, mettono nero su bianco un sacco di pensieri fugaci che ho fatto durante gli ultimi quindici anni di studio, lavoro e insegnamento in campo di design. Gli autori riescono a catturare perfettamente come il design ad oggi sia in qualche modo costretto a rispondere al mercato e all’industria, contrapponendolo a come dovrebbe tornare ad avere anche una posizione più sperimentale (speculativa) per mettersi al servizio della società e definire probabili scenari futuri: sia per evitare situazioni irreversibili e dannose (cosa che sta accadendo già da tempo), sia per riflettere e far riflettere su come vogliamo che sia il mondo in futuro.

La seconda parte l’ho trovata abbastanza accademica. Una serie di nozioni su cosa è speculative, senza un vero e proprio metodo o suggerimenti concreti su processi da seguire (che beh, se è speculative è comunque esplorativo, quindi probabilmente non ci sono schemi fissi o metodologie, ma due dritte su processi seguiti, se diversi dal design thinking, sarebbero stati utili), con numerosi casi studio di libri/film e chi più ne ha più ne metta. In sostanza, si poteva riassumere tutto in poche pagine con qualche esempio in meno. Anche perché i riferimenti si fermano al 2010, essendo il libro pubblicato nel 2013, e dopo un po’ è ridondante e noioso vedere questi casi studio non aggiornati. Alcuni temi, per quanto esistano ancora, sono troppo centrali e appesantiscono la lettura, come ad esempio il focus sulle biotecnologie e quello sulla Sci-Art, che non vedo più così preponderanti dopo 13 anni, rendendo il libro un po’ obsoleto.

Tutto sommato un libro che aiuta a riflettere sul ruolo del designer e come nella community del design ci siamo un po’ dimenticati di aiutare la società a vedere possibilità, invece di offrire solo soluzioni. Mi aspettavo qualcosa di più.