Before this lecture, I had no idea what design fiction is, was or ever will be(last one not true). But then I came to realise the very thing that i was reading about design fiction through, was an actual actualisation of design fiction.

My humble iPad (or something curiously similar to it) featured in the 1969 cult classic ‘2001: A Space Odyssey’. The tablet computer turned out to be a product derived from this concept called design fiction. Design Fiction takes place in a world not yet established. I learnt that all designers design for the future. Same goes with fictional designers. The concept that all design is idealogical, that it is only the relevant in the parameters that have been set (the current world) is a key to testing if certain design would have a welcome existence or not. I discovered that designers of these fictitious items will use the current real world conditions to craft and tweak there creation so that it will have relevance.

As I was on my commute home I noticed that there were many things that had crossed over the fiction to reality border. Such things the digital watch, and the geo/fitness band. But the technology was not just limited to electrical devices. Dri-Fit, a polymide containing fabric used to move sweat away from the body and into itself and in turn making a breathable, lightweight and comfortable clothing item. The latter would have gone through a long design process due to an already existing competitor, lycra, but unlike lycra, dri fit does not get wet or damp.

It is then when the real world application of the item then starts to improve our lives, even though we did not know it needed improving. The concocting of a product in an imaginary existence can bring humanity closer together if the application is well executed.

– J

As Elliot remarked in the lecture, the shooting and editing process when he first started in the digital media was dirty, tedious and time consuming. But does that time that was put aside for editing that we now take for granted, take some creativity away? Does it relax our imagination? Does it numb our brain?

Even though movies and music have not been improved in the time it takes to write or compose, they have been made a whole lot more stress free with the ease and accessibility of this newer technology. But, this has made me ask the question is music and cinema as good as it once was, during the height of the analogue era?

Did you have to take more care in the studio because the more you edited the material, the quicker the quality would diminish?

Here is a video of the Beatles reacting to a piece of portable sound recording equipment, they are quite astonished to be hearing their own voices back in real time.

The Beatles have written some of the most diverse and timeless music in history identifying with every generation in one way or another since they burst out of Liverpool in the 1960s.

The fact that they created some of the worlds greatest LP’s on complicated, inaccessible & expensive technology shows that their creativity was ‘on’ all the time.

The next example is of revolutionary hip hop artist Kanye West recording his hit ‘Power’ through a series of samples on a sample machine. The samples are pre-recorded segments of songs assigned to a button on the machine. Side note – Regardless of the ease of recording, I personally think that this is one of the best hip hop/rock songs ever.

This is a reasonably easy method of recording and performing a song and there is no such thing as generation-generation quality loss.

But this  begs the question, has any imagination or creativity been lost in this ‘easier’ way of crafting music? We all know the greatness that is The Beatles, but Kanye West is arguably ‘The Beatles’ of the 2000s. He is one of the few artists in the mainstream changing the face of hip hop and pop music. Radio constantly adapts to Kanye West and not the other way round like the mass of other pop artists.

Or have we (the music listening people) just accepted that this is music and regardless of its quality or effort invested, we will buy and dance to it anyway.

Cue T-Pain(ful) app –

You never stay on one idea for ever, an idea is not eternal. You are constantly floating over knew ideas, you can either hover over them, capture them or dive in fully.

Being on the boat that is networked media, there is a comforting feeling in feeling uncomfortable in what we are about to undertake. There is no shore so there is really no need to panic. And if there was a shore in sight, then really we should be scared of approaching it, scared to be out of ideas.

Just a trust is what what you need to keep you going, keep you floating.