Counterfiction: Designing within Alternative Worlds

New products and our interactions with them are almost always informed and shaped by previous models. The design and development process is iterative in nature, and consequently relatively conservative. Designing radically different technological products is therefore difficult due to the pervasive nature of market-orientated culture, which permeates most aspects of contemporary society and heavily informs normative design practice. This chapter questions assumptions of contemporary design, of specific products, that provide countervisions through counterfictions. Designing within alternative worlds raises questions that are addressed by designers and art historians in pursuit of new methods.

In recent years speculative and critical designers have developed methods which enable a reduced influence of consumer market culture on design practice. This paper will begin by focusing on one such method, which is counterfactual histories. The approach borrows from the historiographical method of altering a recorded timeline by proposing What if? questions at key moments in history. In design this effectively creates an alternative set of constraints to those currently informing commercial practice within a specific period or context, and in turn altering material culture.