Design Fiction creates material artifacts that serve as evidence of possible futures, originating from science fiction's concept of diegetic prototypes. Like Star Trek's Tricorder, these objects tell stories about future worlds and their values. Design Fiction finds practical applications in product design, policy development, and strategic planning.
Speculative Design was developed to a degree at and through the Royal College of Art's Design Interactions program, which came out of the Interaction Design program. It (Speculative Design) functions as a kind of challenge existing systems, largely to ways of being. For example, projects like United Micro Kingdoms use provocative scenarios to question technological progress and social structures. While Design Fiction works within existing systems to explore futures, Speculative Design aims to disrupt and critique them. These are rough categorizations and its important to note that there is extensive generative cross talk between these two practices and their practitioners. The debate about which and why is largely academic, and the practices themselves...

A conversation with Troy Campbell who describes his journey from graduate school to becoming a professor and the Chief Scientist at On Your Feet, and launching his practice Hiduke House. We talk about concepts like identity, memory, and mindset activation, and how they can be utilized across consumer, organizational, and personal contexts. Troy talks about how he fuses behavioral science with artistic practices like storytelling and applied improvisation. We also get into specific methods, such as using portals for easing transitions when imagining into possible futures, the kinds of warm-up activities that help foster creativity, and the importance of grounding ideas, understanding imperfections, and leveraging narrative to communicate effectively. Throughout we wonder about the interlinks between structured approaches and expansive creative exploration and how these in the right proportions can achieve meaningful, impactful, and wonderfully unexpected (innovative) outcomes.

"Cybernetic Serendipity: The Computer and the Arts" stands as a pivotal moment in the intersection of technology and creativity. A prescient, groundbreaking collection of art + technology, it captures an extraordinary moment when artists, musicians, poets, and engineers were first exploring the creative potential of computers and cybernetic systems. The exhibition and catalog remind us of the remarkable and oftentimes untapped ability of technology to extend human inventiveness and creativity, probing the boundaries of possibility.
A cursory review of the catalog reveals a spirit of prototyping and experimentation. Many of the projects in here (from the late 1960s!) are the kinds of things that we might see today in the context of Design Fiction, speculative design, and the kinds of art+technology practices that are now becoming more common. The catalog is a historical document, a contemporary manifesto, and a guide for the creative potential of human-machine collaboration. It is a reminder that the most interesting possibilities often lie not in...

An expert panel discussion on the evolving relationship between human agency and technology, exploring the implications of AI systems on society and the role of ethics, imagination, and policy in shaping viable futures. Held at The British Academy, London in collaboration with Google DeepMind, the Science, Technology, and Social Values Lab at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey, and the AI Policy and Governance Working Group.
Moderated by Prof. Alonda Nelson, this expert panel will wander into the questions, hopes, fears, dreads, dreams, and desires of our evolving relationships amongst our own human agency and that of the technologies being deployed right now. We will consider how we might careful balance the ways by which AI systems may augment our capabilities, while preserving transparency and accountability, and maintaining a meaningful alignment with the values and norms that undergird the cultures we wish to inhabit.

Design has long ceased to be seen as a discipline of aesthetics and functionality. It looks for possibilities, using imagination as its inspiration to find opportunities to create more habitable worlds of tomorow. This exhibition is devoted to themes of the distant and near future possibilities.
An exhibition of Near Future Laboratory's Work Kit of Design Fiction at the GRASSI Museum of Applied Arts in Leipzig, Germany. The Work Kit of Design Fiction is exhibited, providing a hands-on experience for attendees and a grounded approach to imagining futures. The exhibition is divided into three chapters and is devoted to themes of the distant and near future. Included in these themes are proposals from the fields of art and design, which use speculative methods to make different futures visible and tangible. Symbiotic, post-human, and interspecies relationships are the focus. We question the role and responsibility of humans within the ecosystem. The emphasis is on cooperation with microorganisms, cohabitation with animals and...

Episode N°093 of the Near Future Laboratory Podcast with filmmaker, director Gary Hustwit, the creative punk mind behind documentaries Rams, Helvetica and Objectified. We dive into his journey in independent filmmaking, his DIY ethos, and his bold ideas about storytelling in a digital world. Gary shares his approach to creating generative cinema—films that evolve and change with each viewing. We explore what it means to push against the boundaries of trad filmmaking, trad distribution, and the creative process. A deep and inspiring conversation about art, risk, and ways of imagining harder.

New Essay in a sweet new book titled ‘Practices of Future Casting: Ways of Sharing Imagined Tomorrows’, a massive and meaningful collection that brings together essays, interviews, and design projects from leading futurists, designers, and thinkers, including the aforementioned essay by Tobias Revell and myself. Edited by Michael Shamiyeh, with contributions from Cory Doctorow, Elliot P. Montgomery, Alex McDowell and others — the volume gets right into the power of storytelling, Design Fiction, and speculative thinking to challenge assumptions and imagine transformative futures. It's got contributions and contributors spanning sustainability, technology, and cultural foresight. Definitely a must-read for anyone seeking to explore the creative edges of what’s possible. Perfect for researchers, designers, and future-thinkers alike.

This image of a PC build — its smoke-glass clear-case window ajar to revel in all of its RGB glory — with a very cyberpunk glowing massive CPU cooler has this exquisite and wonderfully bewildering contrast with a kind of cottage core setting in some guy's, what? Dining room or something? You've got this sort of cottagecore furniture or something I imagine seeing at a flea market or yard sale. And then the cat tree thing there (and cat tail dangling from a window) and all the porcelain miniatures in the shelving unit there — and what seems to be a shelving unit like you used to hold CDs and DVDs in? The ones with the glass door front, I think? ANd there is what seems to be an ashtray, possibly? Curious how this thing just dominates the modest two-seater table.

The Design Fiction project ‘Geneva Map for an Autonomous Vehicle Future’ is a canonical example of how Design Fiction can be used to create a tangible future that can be discussed and debated. A kind of 'applied imagination' that is a way to make the future more real and to help people understand the implications of new technologies.
The approach of Design Fiction involves producing a prospective scenario and materializing it as an everyday object, comprehensible and accessible to everyone, to spark situated discussions on societal issues such as technological change.
The objective of this mandate will be to create a plausible map of the City of Geneva designed for autonomous vehicles, which will facilitate discussion on the urban implications of such a deployment.