week 13. material speculation

1. Students practice transforming everyday objects into speculative artifacts in Neuromancer
  (1) identify the possible object in the Neuromancer fiction
  (2) apply one quality of speculative aesthetics to the object (remove details, reduce colors, simplify shapes, blur functions, ...) to get close to the fictional artifacts.
  (3) sketch the fictional artifact
  (4) name it and cite the texts in the book

William Gibson's Neuromancer: Concept Art

2. Paper reading: Material Speculation (AA'15)
3. Rung-Huei Liang. 2013. Pragmatist Poetics in Interaction Design. (IASDR 2013)

"Bachelard sets material imagination apart from formal imagination [2]. Rather than being conceived intellectually in formal imagination, material imagination is an idea that comes from contact with nature material, such as water and fire." p. 2524

 4.  Morse Things: A Design Inquiry into the Gap Between Things and Us

  5. Olly Radio by Odom https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3290605.3300264

4

Questions:

  1. What are counterfactual artifacts?

       (containing an 'if'- clause that is contrary to fact)

      nonfunctional prototypes, storytelling props, fictional objects

  2. What is Possible World Theory?
  3. What is pragmatist speculation?
  4. What is formal speculation v.s. material speculation?

Neuromancer-Entanglement Project proposal:
1. find brands, products, devices, et al. in Neuromancer
2. find everyday objects (or create new models) and make speculative entanglement with items in 1.
3. Cite texts,  micro-scenarios, in Neuromancer
4. Plan time-space narratives for exhibition

Due date: Jan 3rd, 2022