After this week’s very thought provoking reading, my mind has been running rampant of all the possibilities the notion of Design Fiction could encompass…. then my mind landed upon Lady Gaga’s upcoming pop album named ARTPOP, which serves as more a project than an album, and I pondered could this new and innovative way of presenting music to the masses be considered a form of Design Fiction?
Ok let me backtrack for a minute. For those who aren’t up to date with the happenings of Lady Gaga (don’t fret this isn’t a complete fanboy post where I spawn over the undisputed queen of pop), here’s a little summary of Lady Gaga’s new ambitious project. She plans to release her album through an app which can be downloaded through all smartphone and tablet software’s, but will not merely be a release of music but ‘an interactive jewel case’ in which fans who have no technical experience can re-produce the music and remix it, as well as access many of Lady Gaga’s videos which she’ll be releasing (which can be re-edited), fashion suites in order to design outfits and view new fashion technologies in which Gaga is designing as well as view performance art pieces which Lady Gaga will be collaborating with the likes of Marina Abramović, Jeff Koons, Robert Wilson and Inez & Vinoodh. After you have completed all your experiments with these various outlets you can upload your work to a stream of incoming art in which fellow fans can access as well Lady Gaga herself, enabling you to share your work. Above all this app will be completely free.
In being such an unconventional way to release music, as opposed to the typical physical release in stores / digital release on iTunes, I personally believe that Lady Gaga and the team in which she represents have all displayed the practise of Design Fiction and speculative thinking and then taking that an extra step into actualizing this concept
What do you fellow Media students think of this? Do you agree with my ramblings or just deduce to me being a fanboy of Lady Gaga?