Key Principle
Designers should move upstream -- beyond product, beyond technology, to the concept or research stage -- creating "functional fictions" that make abstract science debatable before it becomes commercial reality.
"We need to move design upstream, beyond product, beyond technology, to the concept or research stage, and to develop speculative designs, or 'useful fictions,' for facilitating debate." (Chapter 4)
Each technological era demands a different design priority:
- Mechanical Age -- Ergonomics (physical fit)
- Computer Age -- User-friendliness (cognitive fit)
- Biological Age -- Ethics (consequences of designing life itself)
The designer's role shifts from creating the product to revealing what the product would mean. As Frederick Pohl observed: "a good writer does not think up only the automobile but also the traffic jam" (Chapter 4). Design implications, not applications.
Why This Matters
Biotechnology is categorically different from digital technology because it does not allow opt-out. "Are we prepared to treat society as a living laboratory as we do with digital technologies? Yes, Facebook affects our behavior and social relations but we can choose not to use it. Once we begin to design or redesign life itself, it gets complicated; the consequences are more profound and the very nature of being human could change." (Chapter 4)
The critical failure mode is a split between citizen and consumer identity. People debate ethics abstractly as citizens, then suspend those beliefs when offered desirable products as consumers. "Usually when we discuss big issues we do so as citizens, yet it is as consumers that we help reality take shape. It is only when products are bought that they enter everyday life and have an effect. The act of buying determines our technological future." (Chapter 4)
Speculative design engages both identities simultaneously, exposing the gap. Fictional biotech products provoke a "complex mix of contradictory emotions and responses" that opens perspectives no purely rational debate can reach (Chapter 4). Without this dual engagement, ethical debate remains disconnected from the marketplace decisions that actually shape reality.
Good Examples
Auger-Loizeau, Carnivorous Domestic Entertainment Robots (2009): Robots powered by microbial fuel cells converting trapped insects into energy, presented as domestic products. "Extremely successful in generating debate online, in the press and even on TV" (Chapter 4). The familiar product form is what makes the ethical provocation legible to a mass audience.
Revital Cohen, Life Support (2008): Proposes transgenic animals as living medical devices -- a sheep matched to a patient's blood functioning as a dialysis machine overnight. This is "speculative ethics -- a tool for exploring notions of future good and future bad" (Chapter 4). Forces audiences to locate their own moral boundaries without real policy stakes.
BCL's Biopresence (2003): A proposal to insert human DNA into apple trees as living memorials. The project failed to secure funding, but the years-long attempt "highlighted all sorts of issues around the regulation of biotechnological products" (Chapter 4). "It is not always necessary to be 'real' to be valuable" (Chapter 4). The obstacles encountered during attempted realization became the insight.
Counterpoints
Desensitization risk: The authors concede that speculative biodesign "might prepare people for what is to come by unintentionally paving the way for a greater acceptance of biotechnology through desensitization" and that "dangerous ideas can be conceived that open up possibilities better left unexplored, and once thought cannot be unthought" (Chapter 4). The mechanism by which debate avoids becoming normalization is acknowledged but not fully resolved.
Visual register shapes the debate: When bioart defaults to gothic imagery (test tubes, fluids, flesh), it narrows public response to visceral revulsion. Speculative design must "provide new forms of visual representation for biotechnology that open up other possibilities for debate" (Chapter 4). Veronica Ranner's Biophilia reframed organ production as artisanal craft, moving discussion beyond both "brave new world factory visions" and "gothic, Frankenstein scenarios" toward "handcrafted artisanal production processes in which biotechnologists become sculptors of organs" (Chapter 4). The aesthetic choice determines which ethical conversations become possible.
Collaboration suppresses critique: When scientists share years of research with an embedded designer, it feels "almost treacherous to pick up on negative possibilities" (Chapter 4). The social debt of access creates structural bias toward celebration. Solution: independent practice with scientists as advisors, not partners. Autonomy is the precondition for criticality (e.g., Eduardo Kac, Natalie Jeremijenko).
Key Quotes
"For us, this is one of the strengths of design over art in relation to technology: it can pull new technological developments into imaginary but believable everyday situations so that we can explore possible consequences before they happen." -- Dunne & Raby, Chapter 4
"Usually when we discuss big issues we do so as citizens, yet it is as consumers that we help reality take shape." -- Dunne & Raby, Chapter 4
"Each of these speculative projects occupies a space between reality and the impossible, a space of dreams, hopes, and fears." -- Dunne & Raby, Chapter 4
"Although it is not possible for designers to build actual products using biotechnology yet, we should not let that stop us from getting involved; we can still create functional fictions that help us explore the kind of biotechnological world we wish to live in." -- Dunne & Raby, Chapter 4
Rules of Thumb
- Move upstream: design at the concept/research stage, before ideas become technologies or products.
- Design implications, not applications. Ask not "what can we build?" but "what happens when we build it?"
- Engage the consumer-citizen split directly: present speculative biotech in consumer-product form to expose the gap between principled positions and purchasing behavior.
- Choose visual registers deliberately. Gothic defaults close down debate; alternative aesthetics open new ethical conversations.
- Unrealized projects still generate value. The obstacles encountered during attempted realization are themselves insights.
- Maintain independence from research subjects. Collaboration creates structural bias toward celebration; autonomy enables critique.
- Absurdity is calibrated, not random: it must be close enough to reality to provoke genuine discomfort rather than dismissal.
Related References
- Core Framework: Speculative Design as Social Dreaming - The speculative design thesis this chapter applies to biotechnology
- The PPPP Futures Cone - Functional fictions operate in the Possible zone of the PPPP cone
- Critical Design as Attitude - The critical attitude that grounds biodesign speculation