Mollon, M. (2013 Mar. 19th). Design for debate, an introduction to my research topic. Presented at Pôle supérieur de design, DSAA Interaction Design program, Villefontaine (38), France. – http://www.designvillefontaine.com/

1. HELLO!
MAX MOLLON
DESIGN FOR DEBATE,THE CASE OF TELEPRESENCE
PhD CANDIDATE, INTERACTION DESIGN RESEARCH BY PRACTICE
SUPERVISION:
ANNIE GENTES – TELECOM PARISTECH
EMMANUEL MAHÉ – ENSADLAB
REMY BOURGANEL – ENDALAB/ SOCIABLE MEDIA
Today I will talk about “design fiction” as a practitioner and researcher (it is the topic of my research) and
as former student of Auger-Loizeau (Speculative Design) and Nicolas Nova (Design Fiction) @HEAD–
Geneva in 2011.

2. SCIE FIE › DF.
What is the difference between sci-fi and design fiction?
•Science fiction imagines other worlds to reflect on the values of the current world, done first by
“writing”
•Design fiction do something similar, but done by the “practice of design”
•Both are illustrated by various media (movie, image, etc.)
Ref.
(1982) Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner, artwork by John Alvin

3. Is design fiction useless fantasy?
•Even if disconnected from market values it is not distant from everyday life values. Design fiction is
important because today, people who shape our futures are:experts (scientists) who have the
knowledge + politicians who have the power to apply choices + industries which have influence when
investing money.Their purposes differ from people’s ones.
•People have only a role of consumers and can’t perceive any issues before the technologies become
products.The aim is to start discussions.
•It is not because we can not print beaf-steaks for lunch at the office “yet”, that we should not highlight
right now the issues it brings.

4. Ref.
Robert Zemeckis’ Back to the future 1. Christopher Lloyd plays Doc (the scientist)
Obama, President election 2012
Election Crowd, Wellington, New Zealand. Captured by William Hall Raine, 1931.

5. Why “by design”?
•Design make things “usable” (left image). It also makes new needs “seducing” (right image). It has the
role to transform (or convert) stakeholders aims in consumers needs.The designer has a strategic
position and can make a difference to articulate a debate between these actors.
•Design knows how to touch people using a visual language they recognise. Problematics are embedded
into a familiar typology of objects (furniture, architecture, fashion, graphics, web…). Design also works
within a filiation of existing objects, usages and technologies. Design has the ability to make the fiction
probable and the questions accessible.

6. INDUSTRIES
Is it a useful approach for professional designers and companies?
Industries (especially big ones) have problems to innovate. Extracting ourselves from the market
constraints has a value that big companies seek. We hope it would also help them to reflect on their
situation, production and identity.

7. SOLDIER MEETS HIS NEWBORN BABY FOR THE FIRST TIME
What is my specific work?
•My research focuses on “Design Fiction” & “Telepresence”
•Telepresence is a personnel and contemporary society problem, a real need and an uncomfortable
usage;Design fiction miss something, it hardly closes the loop from stakeholders – through design – to
consumers, back to stakeholders. A debate enablement situation is missing.
•I work through design (producing alternatives to Skype) to rise questions as:How does technology help
to bear absence? How does it transform our relation to the other, in the society? What is the designer’s
role? How to engage a debate between people? etc.

8. What is my contribution?
Research in the field of telepresence goes in many directions, there are plenty of probable futures. I
design questions more than solutions. I show desirable frictions to generate discussions on meaningful
issues. I put my opinion apart to let emerge the contradicting voices of the controversy and allow people
to encompass a broader situation.
Ref. Geminoid by Prof Hishiguro. SMS by Apple.Telephone by Bell Laboratories. A letter.Zeus & Hera by LovePalz. DAL lamp by Violet.

9. I redesigned this model on the basis of:
•Henchey, N. (1978), 'Making Sense of Futures Studies', Alternatives, 7:24-29.
•Hancock,Trevor;Bezold, Clement:Possible Futures – Preferable Futures, in:Healthcare Forum Journal,
Mach/April 1994, pp. 23-29
•Voros (2000) (refers to Henchey) http://thinkingfutures.net/wp-content/uploads/2010/10/
A_Primer_on_Futures_Studies1.pdf
•Stuart Candy (2009) https://diegeticbusiness.wordpress.com/tag/stuart-candy/
•Dunne&Raby (2010) http://www.dunneandraby.co.uk/content/projects/560/0

10. PROJECTS
The aim is to articulate tensions among the variety of “next present” and to animate a discussion.

11. 4 example of my projects rising different questions on the telepresence topic.
In order to present my work I presented a focus on 2 projects:
• More info on:http://cargocollective.com/alternative-communication/Dog-bone
• More info on:http://cargocollective.com/alternative-communication/Mitoyen
• 4 images here are:Mime, Mitoyen, Dog&Bone & Vapor Mist

12. What is design fiction? A closer look:
•What:Designing for a world that does not exist (yet)
•Why:Aiming at sparking discussions on the values that influence the current world
•How:by designing artefacts comming from a world that has different values

13. Speculative design, Conceptual Design,
Contestable Futures, Cautionary Tales, Activism,
Design for debate, Design fiction, Discursive design,
Interrogative Design, Probe design, Radical Design,
Satire, Social Fiction…
DUNNE, A. PERSONAL COMMUNICATION, DUBLIN, FEBRUARY 03RD, 2012
”
“
What is design fiction? A closer look:
•Various related practices and various people

14. DUNNE, A. PERSONAL COMMUNICATION, DUBLIN, FEBRUARY 03RD, 2012
FALLMAN, D.THE INTERACTION DESIGN RESEARCH TRIANGLE OF DESIGN PRACTICE, DESIGN STUDIES,
AND DESIGN EXPLORATION, DESIGN ISSUES, 24(3), 4–18, 2008
What is design fiction? A closer look:
•We refer to these various practices as “Design Exploration Research” (Fallman, 2012)
Ref.
Fallman, D. (2008).The interaction design research triangle of design practice, design studies, and design exploration. Design Issues,
24(3), 4–18.
The artefacts “often seeks to test ideas and to ask ‘What if?’—but also to provoke, criticise, and experiment to reveal alternatives to the
expected and traditional, to transcend accepted paradigms, to bring matters to a head, and to be proactive and societal in its
expression.” […] the artefact “becomes a statement or a contribution to an ongoing societal discussion”

15. DUNNE, A. HERTZIAN TALES. MIT PRESS (MA). (2005).
BLEECKER,J. DESIGN FICTION (PP. 1–49). NEAR FUTURE LABORATORY. (2009).
Two famous examples that belong to design exploration research

16. These practices AIM AT
challenging the audience,
& triggering reactions
on the current state of things
BY proposing alternatives,
through design.
MOLLON, M., & GENTÈS, A.,THE RHETORIC OF DESIGN FOR DEBATE,TRIGGERING CONVERSATION WITH
AN “UNCANNY ENOUGH” ARTEFACT, (PP. 1–17). PRESENTED AT THE PROCEEDINGS OF THE DESIGN
RESEARCH SOCIETY INTERNATIONAL CONSORTIUM (DRS), UMEÅ, SWEDEN. (2014)
”
“
“DESIGN EXPLORATION RESEARCH”
What are common aims and means of design exploration researches?
This is a personal definition

17. EXPLORING
ALTERNATIVES
TRIGGERING
REACTIONS
GENERATING
DEBATE
“DESIGN EXPLORATION RESEARCH”
Design space of my PhD research:
•I study how these practices can “trigger reactions” and “generate debate”
•Before to reach this aim we will talk today about:how to propose alternatives to the current
world? How to change the paradigms on which rely our world? How can a “grain of sand” deploy
consequences on all layers of society?
•There is no 1 recipe!

18. 3 EXAMPLES

19. AFTERLIFE AUGER-LOIZEAU (2009)
More info: http://www.auger-loizeau.com/index.php?id=9

20. Afterlife converts a body into energy, recharging a microbio-fuel cell battery technology, allowing the
deceased to have an afterlife.
As the audiences reactions were too strong, stucked on superficial issues (decomposition, etc.).The
designers asked 15 colleagues to write a testimony of how they want their energy to be used by their
relatives.

21. Here:a wife asks her husband to use it in a electric tooth brush to remind of their first kiss. A father asks
his family to use his several randomly charged batteries into a TV-controller in order to have the power to
block the controller responses at several occasions over time, like usually, even if he is not there
anymore.These testimony refocused the debate on the value of this form of life after death.

22. HEROIC SIMULATOR FROM WENDY GAZE (2013)
More info: http://wendygaze.com/001-I-m-flying

23. Heroic Simulator is part of a series of projects exploring our relationship to cinema icons,
confronted to public spaces. Here the user is allowed to leave Rose’s experience from the movie
Titanic (when held by Dicaprio).The user becomes a hero.

25. SHENU:HYDROLEMIC SYSTEM,TAKRAM (2012)
More info:http://www.takram.com/ – https://vimeo.com/43956767
• Kinya Tagawa, Project Leader, Kotaro Watanabe, Story-Weaver, Kaz Yoneda, Lead Designer with Moon Kyungwon and Jeon Joonho,
Artists.
• Original concept development by Motohide Hatanaka, Ph.D., Project Leader (ex-takram, currently with YUKI Precision)
• Photographs by Naohiro Tsukada
• Figure Artwork by Bryan Christie (with the addition of organ rendering by takram design engineering)
• © 2012 takram design engineering

26. What if drinkable water was reduced to 20% of its quantity due to a massive radioactive accident?
The company has been given this brief and asked to design a water bottle in this alternative world (yet
probable).

27. The result is a series of external organs made for improved water spending and saving.
The user is allowed to a limited amount of water-doses per day (the white eggs).

29. 3 EXAMPLES
• WHAT IF BIOREACTORS › DECOMPOSE OUR BODIES › WE COULD LIVE AFTER DEATH
• WHAT IF I COULD FEEL LIKE A HERO › BUT FAR FROM MY TV, FEELING FOR REAL › I COULD PERFORM INTO THE PUBLIC SPACE
• WHAT IF THERE WOULD HAVE NO MORE DRINKABLE WATER › WE STILL NEED WATER › WE COULD AUGMENT OUR BODY
We can see that one alternative element can change the whole world.
The alteration can be made on different parameters (technology, user needs/expectations,
social, economics, politics, environment…).The alternative world is often born from the meeting
of two unexpected elements.This re-defined context of use could be part of a design brief – a
usual design process with an usual design brief.

30. WORKSHOP:
ACTIVITY N°1
ACTIVITY N°2
ACTIVITY N°3
Deleted from online version for a matter of brevity

31. REFERENCES WE TALKED ABOUT:
Inspirations for prototyping with speculation and design fiction examples
• Meanwhile:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YmokqDrIBKg
• Matin Brun:http://youtu.be/JP_D0l9p_zA
• Black Mirror S01e03:http://www.watch-tvseries.net/series13/Black-Mirror/
season-02-episode-01-Be-Right-Back
• Black Mirror S02E01:http://www.watch-tvseries.net/series13/Black-Mirror/
season-01-episode-03-In-Memoriam---The-Entire-History-of-You
References we evoked about your topics
• The City and The City, China Mieville
http://www.amazon.com/City-Random-House-Readers-Circle/dp/034549752X
• Dossiers Akashiques http://www.akashic.ch
• Ethical Autonomous Vehicle (About ethics and algorithms)
http://www.mchrbn.net/projects/ethical-autonomous-vehicles/
• Forteresse Digitale, Dan Brown
http://www.amazon.fr/Forteresse-digitale-Dan-Brown/dp/2709626306
• Strange Days, Kathryn Bigelow http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0114558/
Look at the 2nd video:
http://www.my-os.net/blog/index.php?2008/11/02/1155-vue-a-la-premiere-
personne-au-cinema-et-dans-le-jeu-video
• A serbian film (very violent) http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1273235/
• Nymphomaniac http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1937390/

32. THANK YOU!
MAX MOLLON
DESIGN FOR DEBATE,THE CASE OF TELEPRESENCE
PhD CANDIDATE, INTERACTION DESIGN RESEARCH BY PRACTICE + INFOCOM
SACRe PSL,
ENSADLAB/ SOCIABLE MEDIA,
TELECOM PARISTECH/ CODESIGN LAB & MEDIA STUDIES
CONTACT
MOLLON@TELECOM-PARISTECH.FR
MAXMOLLON.COM