This course introduces students to contemporary strategies companies are using to speculate about the future of technology in both 10- and 100-year timespans. Using a variety of methods from design fiction to film-making, students will learn to think both critically and creatively about the future of human-technology relationships. This project-based class is welcome to both undergraduate and graduate students interested in cultivating their ability to not only envision alternative futures, but to effectively communicate those visions through material practices.
In 1997 Philip Agre coined the term “critical technical practice” to describe how the design and development of new technologies can be used a method to critique technology and its relationship to society. In the years since, a number of critical approaches to the design, such as speculative design and design fiction, have emerged to form a productive space for developing designs that blend engineering with fields like art and storytelling.
Through lectures, readings, and projects, this course will blend theory and design practice to explore the unique ways of knowing that emerge from doing—shifting attention from what we make to why we make and what making can tell us about our world. While the readings from the course will draw from a broad range of disciplines (including interaction design, contemporary art, anthropology) the projects will focus on using process-based research to foster new perceptions and understandings of human-technology relationships as well as generating alternative visions for technology in the future.
Students from a broad range of disciplines are welcome and encouraged to enroll in the course. Because of the focus on cultivating critical perspectives of technology, students are encouraged to have experience in computer programming and/or physical prototyping.
Students who successfully complete this course will: