Design fiction as norm-critical practice

Abstract

The transdisciplinary fields of design and feminist technoscience share a common interest in focusing on the world in a state of always becoming, always changing. Within feminist technoscience, norm-critical perspectives are implemented to shed light on unequal sociotechnical infrastructures. Within design research, generative methods of critical design and design fiction encourage processes of fictional prototyping and storytelling that infuse discussions on what kind of world we want to live in. The purpose of this paper is to illustrate how design fiction can be used as a method to address norm-criticality in media technology education. Based on a week-long design fiction workshop with undergraduate students, three student projects are analyzed in detail. The analysis suggests design fiction can be used as a norm-critical practice to invoke discussions on values and beliefs within media design processes as well as established narratives of futuring.