SPECULATIVE DESIGN
Today designers often focus on making technology easy to use, sexy, and consumable. Speculative design 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).
* Speculative Everything: Design, Fiction and Social Dreaming - Anthony Dunne and Fiona Raby (2003)
THE ORGANS FARM
Abortion has always been one of the biggest taboos: is it morally and ethically right to end childbirth prematurely? From recent analysis, some people will always think abortion is erroneous, others say that it depends on the situation, but after all who are we to decide if it’s right or wrong?
Before aborting the unborn, the cells carrying the information for organs are extracted. Those cells are kept in an incubator that imitates the natural environment the cell was taken out of. The incubator ensures the organs develop as they would normally. After nine months the organ is ready to be donated. The human organs can now be transplanted to patients in need. Farming organs of unwanted pregnancy gives abortion a new perspective.
HOMOSEXUALITY ERASER
Research shows that sexual orientation is determined prenatally and thus gender and sexual orientation relate to the hypothalamic structures. The hypothalamus is the part of the brain that connects the nervous system with the endocrine system.
Laser treatment is possible. The laser stimulates the hypothalamus to develop in a certain way and thus hinder other structures from developing. Hence, it is possible to determine sexual orientation and avoid homosexuality before it emerges.
Homosexuals encounter more practical and societal difficulties than heterosexuals in their everyday life. Is this the solution for an easier life of the future generation, having to deal with less homosexuality and more homogeneity?
