Charlton Heston introduced Scott Smith who demonstrated a home lifting device called Lift@home at DemoCamp 2019 in Toronto. Smith discussed how science fiction works like Planet of the Apes, I Am Legend, and Make Room! Make Room! anticipated future technologies. He quoted sources saying science fiction shapes technological development and that design fiction probes ideas for the future similarly to how science fiction does through stories. Smith concluded by quoting I Am Legend, saying his device enters "the unassailable fortress of forever."

1. Charlton Heston
Design Fiction
Active Futures.
Scott Smith
Lift@home Toronto | DemoCamp 2019

5. Made in 1967, from 1963 novel La Planète des Singes by Pierre Boulle

6. Made in 1971, from 1954 novel I Am Legend by Richard Matheson

7. Made in 1973, from 1966 novel Make Room! Make Room! by Harry Harrison

11. Now what?

12. “…Science fiction
does not merely
anticipate but actively
shapes technological
futures through its effect
on the collective
imagination.”
-Paul Dourish and Genevieve Bell,
“Resistance is Futile”: Reading Science
Fiction Alongside Ubiquitous Computing

13. “Design seeks out ways to
jump over its own conceptual
walls—scenarios, user
observation, brainstorming,
rapid prototyping, critical
design, speculative design.”
-Bruce Sterling, interactions magazine, May/
June 2009

14. “Design is about the future in a
way similar to science fiction. It
probes imaginatively and
materializes ideas, the way science
fiction materializes ideas,
oftentimes through stories.”
-Julian Bleecker, Near Future Laboratory
“Design Fiction: A Short Essay on Design, Science,
Fact and Fiction”

16. ACTIVE
= FUTURES

17. "[I am] a new superstition
entering the unassailable
fortress of forever. I am legend.”
-Richard Matheson, I Am Legend

18. Thank
You.
ssmith@changeist.com
www.changeist.com
@changeist