Utopia/Dystopia

Gabriel Schaffzin, MFA ’13

thesis abstract

It all started with a new-found appreciation for dystopian fiction — an appreciation that escalated pretty quickly. After I read Gary Shtyngart’s Super Sad True Love Story (per a recommendation from a professor), I started filling my bookshelves with work just like it.

I went to the South By Southwest Interactive conference in Austin in 2012 and heard a talk given by researcher danah boyd. The talk was called “The Power of Fear in Networked Publics” and focused on the culture of fear being perpetrated by actors in the attention economy in which we live today. Social media, boyd argued, is amping up the attention economy — particularly by heralding the same brevity and speed I mentioned earlier. At one point, boyd mentioned the use of dystopian and utopian rhetoric in the discourse relating to our networks. So I decided to raise my hand and ask about the role of designers in all of this. Specifically, I wanted to know about those designing our future. Her answer inspired me. I would try to design the future in order to inspire conversations about it. I would work towards something I’d eventually call a tangible criticality.

I do believe in fi ction, particularly because it works through issues. And I think it is a really important task for us to image all of those possibilities. I also think that that’s what designers can do. I actually think that designers need to engage more with science-fiction methodologies. Not just thinking through what you want to come out to be, but all of the possible unintended consequences of it…I think thinking like that, not because you want to enact or create the dystopia, but because you want to actually have a conversation about it is extremely important.