As the inaugural speculative design conference, PRIMER brought together some of the best minds in the field of speculative design. This is a recap of my own takeaways from the conference. For more, or to simply connect, get in touch with me at georgewang89@gmail.com linkedin.com/in/georgewang89 twitter.com/georgewang89

1. A SPECULATIVE DESIGN CONFERENCE
February 24-26, 2017 | San Francisco, California

2. What exactly is Speculative Design?
Source: James Pierce

3. SPECULATIVE DESIGN
“Today designers often focus on making technology easy
to use, sexy, and consumable. In Speculative Everything,
Anthony Dunne and Fiona Raby propose a kind of
design that is used as a tool to create not only things but
ideas. For them, design is a means of speculating about
how things could be—to imagine possible futures. This
is not the usual sort of predicting or forecasting, spotting
trends and extrapolating; these kinds of predictions have
been proven wrong, again and again. Instead, Dunne
and Raby pose “what if” questions that are intended to
open debate and discussion about the kind of future
people want (and do not want).”
— MIT Press

4. CHEAT SHEET
➤ Website: http://www.primerconference.com/
➤ Speakers: http://www.primerconference.com/speakers/
➤ Core77 Articles: http://www.core77.com/posts/63489/Primer-2017-A-Speculative-Futures-Conference
➤ Wired article: https://www.wired.com/beyond-the-beyond/2017/02/primer-speculative-design-conference/
➤ My album of key slides: https://goo.gl/photos/6APBk5ecnzoNd8Gb7
FIND OUT MORE, SCHEDULE A PRESENTATION, OR SIGN UP FOR FUTURE INSIGHTS
➤ georgewang89@gmail.com | linkedin.com/in/georgewang89 | @georgewang89

5. A LITTLE ABOUT ME
Growing up, I’ve always been a little weird. But weird is a relative
concept. Put me in a room with other people who are equally
intoxicated on their own journey of discovery and creation, then I’d
still be weird. “Wait, what?” Were you expecting me to say I’ll fit right
in? Like that — weird people always try to inject a little surprise into
the conversation. We love asking questions, experimenting with
perceptions, and above all, loosening the way people think about the
world and themselves.
George is the name I picked after immigrating to Canada. The intent
was to have the same name as the guy from the Titanic, but ended up
being called Curious George through most of school. I used to be
embarrassed by it, and now I wear it proudly. “Curiosity keeps leading
us down new paths,” said Walt Disney. It has certainly done so for me.
Today, I an INNOVATION STRATEGIST with a background in
Engineering and entrepreneurship who thrives on tearing down
walls and connecting people and ideas. Playing at the intersection of
culture, emerging technology, and commerce, I bringing people
together to envision and bring about new possibilities.
Everything I do is guided by three questions: How might we be useful?
how might we be inclusive? and how might we share well to flourish? My
ultimate drug in life — creating situations where everybody wins.
George
Kesha

6. MAKING SENSE OF SPECULATIVE DESIGN
F

7. Left: A manifesto entitled A/B that positions what we do (speculative design) in relation to how most people understand design. Source: James Pierce
Right: A comparison of design on the left vs speculative design on the right. Source: Christian Ervin @tellart.

8. A couple more ideas as warm up for what you’re about to see in the rest of this deck…

9. Jason Kelly Johnson, Co-founder of the Future Cities Lab, shared an interesting story of his daughter asking innocent questions that have
seemingly obvious answers, but upon closer inspection, challenge the way we organize the world. A big part of futures studies is around
challenging our pre-existing schemas, in order to make space for us to imagine alternative futures.

10. MAKING FUTURES TANGIBLE
Christian

11. United Arab Emirates was formed in 1971. The reason why it didn’t appear on the news as much until recently is because for a very long time, the
picture on the left is what UAE looked like back when it was founded. The association that UAE has with luxury is a relatively new concept. The
contrast between the two images shows just how much change can happen within the span of a few decades.

12. Museum of the Future, led for Tellart, is an exhibition at the World Government Summit in Dubai. The exhibition is comprised of about a dozen
immersive experiences that paints a picture around future impact of current advancements in robotics and artificial intelligence on society. The
following slides explore three ways that immersion can be achieved.

13. GAMES
Immersion is about suspending disbelief.
What makes games, games, is their capacity
for players to willingly suspend disbelief.
Top: Healthcare in the future will be
preventative and experienced as a game. The goal
of the game for patients is to move their bodies
according to on-screen instructions. The system
is able to read their movements and detect
abnormalities. Participants of the exhibition take
the role of patients and play the game.
Bottom: After coming home from a long day, an
AI — of middle east origins — will welcome you
back and help you unwind by starting a game of
“do not touch the lava!” right in your living
room.

14. MULTI SENSORY EXPERIENCE
An experience is more immersive when
it engages a multitude of senses.
This is a “clinic” of the future. Instead of
going to the doctor when you’re sick,
inhaling this wellness mist once in a while
will ward off any harmful pathogens and
keep you healthy.

15. MEANINGFUL CHOICES
Giving participants the opportunity to
reflect and make meaningful choices is
one way to create an immersive
experience.
Choosing a career in the future will be
facilitated by an AI that knows your values
and interests and matches you with a career
that aligns with those values and interests.
It understands your values by asking
situational questions whose answers reveal
your underlying values.

16. STORYTELLING FOR DESIGN
Beverly May, Founder of the Concepts Lab

17. Short phrases capturing people’s sentiments
towards an experience
In summary, this is what the existing
experience feels like
DESIGNING THE DRIVER EXPERIENCE
… and this is what we want the future to feel
like. * note the change in colours
Storytelling is a crucial skill in design products for today and designing experiences that don’t exist yet.
Here is the story of how participants in a workshop designed the future experience of driving and riding in a vehicle, told by Beverly
May, using her signature storytelling format that’s both engaging and succinct.

18. … and this is what we want the future to feel
like
* note the change in colours
Write each component of the dashboard on a
card and experimenting with different ways to
categorize them
Redesigned dashboard layout Taking an used car and replacing its dashboard
with the redesigned dashboard
DESIGNING THE DRIVER EXPERIENCE

19. Persona of the target user Macro user journey
Journey map for each point in the macro journey
DESIGNING THE DRIVER EXPERIENCE

20. Similar to driver experience,
1. Short phrases capturing sentiments
towards the passenger experience
2. What the existing experience feels like
3. Characteristics of the desired experience
Persona of the target user, and how it changes
over time a
Final output:
Redesigned seatingAND NOW FOR THE
PASSENGER…

21. OVERCOMING BIASES FOR THE FUTURE
Paolo Cardini, Associate Professor, RISD; Global Futures Lab

22. Our experiences are Common images of the future is rooted in a Western perspective. Certain things we consider as “the future” is already “the
present” in other parts of the world. For example, a dystopia future where the atmosphere is so poisonous that we cannot breathe unless wearing a
mask — is already a reality in China. A future in which people’s life partners are arranged for them — is already a reality in India.

23. Left: Why can’t an astronaut be wearing traditional African garb? #Afrofuturism
Top right: Traditionally decorated furniture from India modified from IKEA nightstand.
Bottom right: In India, there are elements that connect to their future scenarios that we don't see here, spirituality and religion for example.

24. Top left: Foosball table with “players” dressed in Middle Eastern clothing
Bottom left: Toy pieces for building houses are designed for a western culture where houses look like a rectangular body with a triangular roof. Houses in other parts of
the world are shaped differently, so toys should be as well.
Right: Kids from parts of the world don’t recognize moose, but they do recognize camels.

25. How do we get rid of stereotypes of the future, and create something original? How do we make sure the ideas we have about the future based on
social cultural understanding and not from something we inherited?

26. So much of what we perceive as “the future” is a technocratic one — holograms, florissant lighting, and minimalist designs,
Fishermen will continue to exist in the future, but only equipped with new technologies.
IMMERSIVE

27. WORDS TO
➤ Pluriverse: The world never has a
singular future. There are always multiple
futures (if not futures of every kind) co-
existing alongside one another in the
world.
➤ Eutopia / Eupsychia: Rather than
aiming for an extremely good dream or
an extremely bad dream described by
words like utopia and dystopia, eutopia
and eupsychia are a “dialed-back” version
of their extreme counterparts that’s based
on our time and place. They are
hypercontextualized dreams.

28. DOESN’T QUITE WORK

29. Apple doesn’t have nearly as many features as android; Snapchat photos self destruct after a number of seconds; Twitter limits you to 140 characters
These products all illustrate the concept of “counterfunctionality” — it’s actually operational, but it doesn’t quite work (work in the sense that we
expect it to)

30. Here’s a “counterfunctional” project that James did. He bought eight cameras and encased them in concrete — leaving only a power button and a charging port exposed. The
idea is to prevent the user from being able to retrieve the photos they take, unless they smash open the concrete exterior. The device was neatly packaged with an instruction
manual and was sold / given to people from all walks of life. What’s the point of this? It’s an unusual kind of interaction that allows the user to observe how they behave
and in turn, reveal who they are to themselves. (I made this last part up, as the point of this is really whatever you want it to be. Strange but interesting, isn’t it?)

31. The camera project was a real world example that James used to give some tangible form to his attempt to define the space of speculative futures.

32. AMBIENT STORYTELLING

33. What kind of story can by told by the environment and objects within it — especially in a IoT world where things are increasingly aware of your choices and actions. The
modern car, has more lines of code in it than a space shuttle. Can all of this data be constructed into a story? Scott Fisher, Founding Chair of the Interactive Media Division
in the USC School of Cinematic Arts, programmed the driving experience so that milestones’ can be unlocked as the car is being driven over time. He also created a Twitter
account that tweets about the driver’s behaviors. All in all, this was an experimental project that pushed the boundaries of who, what, and how stories could be told.

34. FUTURE OF WORK… THROUGH VR

35. Virtual reality is maturing into a techno

36. DESIGNING THE HUMAN BODY

37. EMPATHY
Dentists used to practice their techniques on models
from a hundred years ago that elicited zero empathy.
Even though these models have come a long way in
terms of accuracy, empathy is still the last thing it
elicits from a person. On the other hand, empathy is
easily elicited by the video in which a human kicks a
robotic dog. The fact that we have more empathy for
something that hurts as if it were a living thing but
does not resemble anything alive, over something
static that merely looks like a real person, is telling of
behavior’s ability to trigger empathy.
To bring this idea to life, Agi Hanes, a speculative
designer in the area of biology and medicine, created
a model that hurts like human. If you make a noise,
the models would cry and bleed. The louder the
noise, the stronger then outpour of fluids from the
body.

38. Agi’s work is focused on designing the human body. How might people respond to the possibilities of our body as another everyday material and how far can we push our
malleable bodies while still being accepted by society? Instead of inserting mechanical devices into our bodies, what if we adapt the specialized organ of an electric eel into a
pacemaker? What if we modify babies when they are born to help them cope with health or extreme weather conditions that’s a consequence of climate change? Of course
everything you see here is fake, but made realistic enough so they move from being abstract ideas to tangible realities that people can have gut reactions to.

39. Here are three other experiments she ran that provoke people’s thinking.
Left: Having participants peek into a hotel room with a man sleeping from across the floor from his testicles that “live” in its own capsule.
Middle: Getting people to perform surgery on ultra-realistic (but fake) eyeballs
Right: For people with neurological diseases, what if their skulls are modified to have a transparent section through which the brain condition can be monitored with ease?

40. INTERESTED IN HEARING MORE?
Guy on the left:
Me! Always happy to share. Feel free to reach
out even if you’re just interested in connecting.
georgewang89@gmail.com
linkedin.com/in/georgewang89
@georgewang89
Guy on the right:
Phil Balagtas, Founder of Speculative Futures
& PRIMER Conference
https://www.linkedin.com/in/neshacom/
@neshacom1

41. TOP FOUR TAKEAWAYS
Future is just around the corner
Dubai went from a desert to a metropolis in the span of forty-
something years. The speed at which changes can happen is
astounding. By closing the temporal distance in different aspects
of our world - our economy, environment, technology, politics,
and values - between today and the future, it puts weight on our
actions today. Whether we’re talking about flooded coast lines
or unlimited clean energy, the future is coming sooner than we
think.
Speculative design questions about the unquestionable, and
makes the outrageous feel achievable
Paolo’s work exposes our stereotypes of the future casts doubt
on the certainty of our beliefs. Agi’s work Å the outrageous idea
of implementing animal organs in humans feel vaguely familiar.
While one raises the question of ‘why?’, and the other ‘why
not?’, both expands our field of view and allows us to recognize
new possibilities. This is what speculative design is all about.
Stereotypes of the future
How we think about the future is often colored by stereotypes.
For example, our visions of the future tend to gravitate towards
the Utopian and Dystopian extremes. But if you compare our
world today to what people twenty years ago thought our world
would look like, while we can carry a million songs in our
pocket and can barely afford to buy a house, the facade of our
world remain largely unchanged. The future mostly looks more
or less same to our world today - mundane and messy.
Speculative design is irony manifested
A friend once told me that art is philosophy manifested. If that’s
the case, then I think speculative design is irony manifested.
Speculative design is about the coalescence of contradictions —
about making things operational, but doesn’t actually quite
work.

42. YOU ARE NOW PRIMEDgeorgewang89@gmail.com
linkedin.com/in/georgewang89
@georgewang89