(2015) Audience Construction & The Uncanny (NOTES) – At Goldsmith DF

MAX MOLLON | AUDIENCE CONSTRUCTION & THE UNCANNY | GOLDSMITH DESIGN FESTIVAL 2015
MAX MOLLON | AUDIENCE
CONSTRUCTION & THE
UNCANNY | PRESENTED AT
GOLDSMITH DESIGN FESTIVAL
2015
Max Mollon | Audience Construction & the uncanny | Goldsmith design festival 2015 | London, England
Speculation as Design Research
Tobie Kerridge, Max Mollon,
Luiza Prado de O. Martins, Alison Thomson
While speculative and critical design (SCD)
approaches have been written about extensively,
there is scope to develop empirically robust
accounts of these practices as a form of
design research.
This symposium brings together an
international group of students and
researchers who are challenging popular
and rhetorical modes of writing about SCD
by responding to issues that impinge upon
their practice, including patient experience,
upstream engagement and colonialism.
Symposium
Friday 4th September, 10:00 - 13:00
LG02, Professor Stuart Hall Building
GOLDSMITHS DESIGN
DEPARTMENT OF DESIGN
gold.ac.uk
FESTIVAL
3 - 9 SEPT
Speculation as Design Research
Tobie Kerridge, Max Mollon,
Luiza Prado de O. Martins, Alison Thomson
While speculative and critical design (SCD)
approaches have been written about extensively,
there is scope to develop empirically robust
accounts of these practices as a form of
design research.
This symposium brings together an
international group of students and
researchers who are challenging popular
and rhetorical modes of writing about SCD
by responding to issues that impinge upon
their practice, including patient experience,
upstream engagement and colonialism.
Symposium
Friday 4th September, 10:00 - 13:00
LG02, Professor Stuart Hall Building
GOLDSMITHS DESIGN
DEPARTMENT OF DESIGN
gold.ac.uk
FESTIVAL
3 - 9 SEPT
SPECULATION AS DESIGN RESEARCH

SYMPOSIUM ORGANISED BY TOBIE KERRIDGE. PART OF THE GOLDSMITH DESIGN FESTIVAL 2015 OCT. O4TH 
WITH LUIZA PRADO DE O. MARTINS, MAX MOLLON, ALISON THOMSON.
My initial reply to Tobie’s demand:
In my work, I argue SCD uses design speculations to look into
“people's reactions” when facing alternative views to the world
they know. Indeed, “people’s reactions are the true product”
of these practices – as James Auger puts it, in his thesis. For
that reason, I feel the word empiric to echo with the
relationship of SCD to its audiences. Empirical Speculation can
refer to specific phases of the design process: collecting the
audience reactions.  
Collecting people’s reactions can occur along two phases:  
the production & the reception of the artefact.
• First, showing the project to potential users allows to crash-
test the relevance of a speculation (regarding a specific
audience’s background). These experiments allow to test
the ability of a proposition to elicit “meaningful reactions”
and so, to ensure good reception conditions for the
project (eg. avoiding unintended debates). This is close to
classical design’s pre-release user-testing, enabling to
fine-tune the project. I like to call it “potential-user testing”. 
• The second step happens in live conditions of diffusion,
collecting actual reactions of an audience.
To put it in one word, Empirical Speculation is less about
verifying the accuracy of a conjecture than its effect on
people. It is therefore all about ensuring the relevance of a
speculation to a public and collecting its reactions.
For a matter of brevity, we will not go deeper into the
questions of unintended debates, and situated audiences, yet.
BONJOUR!
French accent! sorry ;)

1. STORY OF THE PROJECT

2. THEORETICAL BACKGROUND

3. RESEARCH QUESTIONS

—

AUDIENCE CONSTRUCTION

& THE UNCANNY
TODAY’S MENU:
or, to be clear:
THE

MEMENTO MOR-E

PROJECT

WON’T TALK ABOUT long term speculation
but projection into scenarios where
everyday life would be slightly altered by an object
Disclaimer: this is a work in progress
MEMENTO MOR-E
HERE IS ONE OF MY 2 ONGOING PROJECTS
both exploring & highlighting ethical problems related to the treatment of MND (moto-neuron)
patients in the health care system
››
Topic = POWERLESS facing the incurable, unavoidable
—
“Memento more” refers to watchmaking traditions of carpeDiem, cease the day
2 TOPICS:
UNIQUE FLUCTUENT TIME PERCEPTION & ENCOURAGING POINTLESS FIGHTING
—
This is a highly sensitive issue & sensible audience.
HOW to represent time when › not same speed anymore?
HOW to provoke reﬂection with the least design intervention possible?
—
Answer › a day to day calendar (Ephemeral)

9
PLEASE CHECK THE VIDEO:VIMEO.COM/MAXMOLLON/EPHEMERIDE
10
11

PROJECT’S INTENTION

Destination: anti-disciplinary debate in the annual MND conference
Debate’s aim: identify main topics of interest in the community
among ethical problems of MND
Client = ethical commission on ethics & healthcare
- Their usual mission = mediation&debate on ethical issues, but ineffective
- Collaboration's aim = Check if design can be tool to improve their debating & mediation activity
They are part of Hopital St Louis in Paris
- Government program about MND › 6 diseases

RESEARCH INTENTIONS
That was their aim but my aim = analyzing how SCD transforms their practice from inside.
Field study (STS/ethno)
Today experiment
• reactions to the uncanny (individually)
• reactions collectively, what’s the difference?
• re-circulation of the topic inside the community
MAX MOLLON | AUDIENCE CONSTRUCTION & THE UNCANNY | GOLDSMITH DESIGN FESTIVAL 2015MY 3 MASTERS TUTORS

I ended doing the same thing
WHAT IS

SPECULATIVE DESIGN
CLAIM?
what is SCD good at?
SPECULATIVE DESIGN AIMS AT

PROPOSING ALTERNATIVES

TO THE WORLD AS WE KNOW IT

IN ORDER TO

ENGAGE PEOPLE INTO

REFLECTION & DISCUSSION
FINE we know how to propose alternatives.
I focus on the two latter
But where & how does the discussions happen?
Art institutions, Mass media, designers workshop, conferences, innovation companies, scientiﬁc
labs…
Critics include:
- “Designers are not skilled to animate a society debate”
- “Our Audience = curators, they animate the debate”
- “working with scientists : Hard to “close the loop”
- “Art communities = elitist”
- “Massive press = superﬁcial”
-

HOW TO ALLOW REFLECTION?

WHO TO ENGAGE INTO DISCUSSION?
—
I came to ask…
THEORETICAL
BACKGROUND:

TEXTS STUDIES

PROJECTS ANALYSIS
HOW
• Based on a study of authors’ projects & discourses: We highlight that a gentle provocation is
necessary to elicit reactions = “uncanny enough” artefact
• We compare this mechanism to breaching experiments (Garﬁnkle). Thanks to the uncanny
balanced project, SCD could allow an audience to express and discuss the untold & unconscious
(eg. social norms)
WHO
• We also believe that SCD sparking of discussions would be more relevant in a contextual pre-
existing audience. Not arbitrary. And allow propagation of the discussion into existing social
networks.
HOW TO ALLOW REFLECTION?

WHO TO ENGAGE INTO DISCUSSION?
UNCANNY

CONSTRUCTION
- gentle provocation
- following the propagation of topics into existing social spheres
EXPERIMENT
My upcoming experiment

HOW
—
WE BELIEVE: An imbalanced provocation allows for less reﬂection & expression
—
TEST: ≠ versions of the artefacts (more-less provocative)
to experiment the uncanny on ≠ scales
• uncanny (individual)
• uncanny collective, what’s different?
HOW
—
WE BELIEVE: an uncanny enough artefact allows for expression of untold & unconscious
—
TEST: Comparison of their previous debates and design-led one
WHO:
—
WE BELIEVE: Targeting a situated (existing, contextual) audience, during the debate, allows the
topics to be re-addressed/re-circulated afterwards in other social spheres
—
TEST:
Wait for re-use of our material & topics by the client & the community
FIRST OBSERVATION

This it the ﬁrst proposition for L’Éphéméride.
The message is more provocative. It’s aiming at people who does not know the disease.
This project was too shocking for patients!
THIS REALLY DEPENDS OF THE AUDIENCE (patient, doctor, non-ill people)
Need for adapting the uncanny to existing audiences
SECOND OBSERVATION
They have their own public engagement activities, methods, media & audiences!
They already planned on re-using our material

The “circulation” of the debated topic already moved among different audiences. It started with
this project, made for INRA.

They published our collaboration on their website. The debate with their scientists led to meeting
the ethics commission and the realisation of the next project.
GMO › BIG-DATA & LIVING BEINGS HEALTH › HUMAN HEALTH PREDICTIONS ›

› MND & HEALTHCARE › MND & TECHNOLOGIES › INSURANCE PLANS & TECHNOLOGIES › …
This is the series of topics debated from projects to projects, as metamorphose of the debate
topics.

WORK IN
PROGRESS

& THE UNCANNY

–

SPECULATIVE DESIGN AS A TOOL FOR

COLLECTIVE REFLECTION & DISCUSSION

ABOUT THE PREFERABLE FUTURES
My aim, as a researcher, is to understand how to better Reach SCD promise: engaging reﬂection &
discussion
—
But for what purpose?
I will discuss the designer’s role & responsibility,
when stepping up into the political scene
—
(Credibility, skills, need for participation/inclusion, etc.)
THANKS!
LICENSED UNDER CREATIVE COMMONS 2.5:  
ATTRIBUTION NON-COMMERCIAL NO DERIVATIVES.

& THE UNCANNY

–

MAXMOLLON@GMAIL.COM

(2015) Audience Construction & The Uncanny (NOTES) – At Goldsmith DF

Recomendados

Recomendados

Mais conteúdo relacionado

Destaque

Destaque (8)

Mais de Max Mollon

Mais de Max Mollon (11)

Último

Último (20)

(2015) Audience Construction & The Uncanny (NOTES) – At Goldsmith DF