Keywords

1 Introduction

Communication Design is an open context with blurred borders [1, 2] and, by its very nature, is a discipline situated among scientific knowledge, technical expertise, and art. The discipline’s knowledge and culture are becoming increasingly difficult to fit into any existing academic standard compared to the past. It is possible to define it as an anti-disciplinary field that requires a new set of values [3] in terms of knowledge, culture and expertise because of the recent changes and advancements in technologies, expectations and requests from users, audiences and industry. In addition, it is possible to witness a clear switch from the centrality of function to the centrality of meaning [4]. These statements convey the idea that Communication Design, far from being a mere problem-solving framework, can also be a tool for exploration and questioning to front the uncertainty of our contemporaneity. Because, as affirmed by Bauman [5], in today’s world, “the only certainty is uncertainty”.

Over the last nine years, these premises have inspired the teaching method and the assignments of a third-year Communication Design Studio (Bachelor in Communication Design) at Politecnico di Milano’s School of Design. The students are prompted to work on visual and experience design related to thought-provoking themes, such as human conditions, emotions, or superstructures, like death or rituals, in the meaning of Harari [6]. The theme is an opportunity. The task is to design communicative ecosystems with interactive experiential devices (defined as ‘Communicative Machines’) as the main applications in a critical and speculative framework.

This is the starting point to involve students in a reflective practice [7], both theoretically (concept, design) and physically (tools, production). Consequently, Communication Design can be used as a tool and a means to validate speculation: the speculative process is correct when designed artefacts, devices, and ecosystems can effectively convey it. Design should not be considered a self-reflexive practice but rather a powerful communication tool to promote speculation.

Students, who work in teams, learn to cross disciplinary borders and adopt a critical approach. Experimentation is intended as a means to find solutions [8], even in areas that teachers, professionals, or students do not master confidently. While developing their projects following learning by doing approach, students experience something close to the definition of thinkering [9], according to which results can only be obtained through progressive and collective reworks. Consequently, the discussed teaching approach does not aim to reassure students with fixed notions. Instead, its goal is to unsettle them, providing a set of tools by which they can deal with uncertainties and develop their design outcomes based on the context they are working in.

2 Speculative Design and Technological Fluency

“As design educators, we cannot afford to exclude Speculative Design from […] education of our students, especially after the current crisis that the whole world is experiencing” [10]. As a pedagogical tool, speculative design opens students’ minds to “think more creatively and critically about the role of design in our shared futures” and apply design principles in different contexts and types of projects. Most design educational programmes still adopt “the modernist rational and functional understanding of design as a problem-solving discipline” [11].

By adopting a speculative design approach, students can experience a variety of possible media and tools that are not exclusively belonging to a specific design area or a fixed method. They can practice various approaches, tools, techniques and instruments as well as other practices and disciplines [12]. However, another issue is also relevant here, and it is the one of the technological fluency to be interpreted as the “ability to translate between domains and view the membranes separating areas of inquiry as porous” [13]. Lukens & DiSalvo [13] affirm that “speculative design and technological fluency are cross-disciplinary and integrative”. Bringing code within the toolset enables students to learn “procedural literacy” and no longer regard the computer as a mysterious “black box” [14]. They regain control of the technology. In the professional context, computational design is misunderstood as a technical skill instead of being regarded as a way of thinking. According to Reas, it allows “to think around and outside of the constraints of any specific piece of software – it makes it more possible to imagine and invent something new […] the code is a means to an end, and the focus is on what the code creates or generates” [15].

Moreover, it is crucial to consider accessibility to instructions and information related to programming languages offered by the global open source culture as a critical component in this evolutionary process [16]. This culture allows sharing of knowledge, results, and codes, making a constant upgrade possible. Knowledge becomes available for all, blurring the boundaries of a merely academic or professional disciplinary field. For these reasons, students are encouraged to use coding environments (Processing, p5.js, Three.js), electronics and embedded programming with the Arduino ecosystem and digital fabrication to start processes and develop applications. As commented by Bernstein, “fluency with technology often draws on knowledge, skills, and approaches that cross traditional disciplinary boundaries” [17].

3 A Critical and Anti-disciplinary Design Pedagogy

According to the belief that design is a tool to create ideas, not only things, students are involved in a process that moves from problem-solving to problem-finding. That encourages the development of concepts, scenarios and results without any predetermined function, aesthetic or, as already affirmed, boundaries in the use of technology.

The process is based on an anti-disciplinary and evolutionary idea of the educational design process, which does not rely on a fixed design method. Defining a pedagogy as anti-disciplinary means “going one step beyond being multi-disciplinary” [18], avoiding strict specialisation in Communication Design education. Adopting an anti-disciplinary approach could mean “not only working in one specific field, but rather instead drawing from elsewhere to imagine something new” [19].

The applied methodology can be visualised with a spiral model, representing repeating cycles of design moving away from a central starting point (Fig. 1). In each of the four main phases, students experience different steps in the design process as they gradually approach their final assignment.

Fig. 1.
figure 1

The spiral model of the applied methodology.

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Once the general theme is given, each group has to define a specific point of view on the theme and a concept to work on: so they have to seek and find a problem to highlight and discuss. They use human superstructures and organisations as useful subjects to ‘represent’ their fiction. It is a “critical pedagogical strategy that emphasises alternative approaches to conventional problem-solving paradigms” that “include both problem-seeking initiatives, and problem-posing inquires” [20]. In this phase, they define a scenario and design concept, starting with a “what if?” question.

The second step is to define a communication strategy and how to develop it in a multidimensional and multichannel dimension (touchpoints and selected media), as well as the ‘Communicative Machine’ (an interactive object or installation) main functions, meanings, and contents. According to their concept and strategy, they must think and design a visual identity to consistently communicate in two and three-dimensional outputs. By doing so, the students gain confidence in the design of complex systems.

Few steps are mandatory, and deadlines are not given beforehand to teach the students to move autonomously towards a final result by testing concepts and outputs. The core activity is the prototyping phase, which involves both digital and analog areas. The groups are not strictly organised by distributing students’ skills or interests. They are instead encouraged to autonomously acquire the skills they lack – especially for what may concern the areas of digital design, coding and prototyping.

The main outputs are ‘Communicative Machines’: objects, installations, or interactive devices to be realised as prototypes to be verified and tested (Fig. 2).

Fig. 2.
figure 2

From top-left, clock-wise: Micromort’s monolith, design by A. Aspesi, C. Bacchini, E. Carbone, P, Forino, D. Perucchini, E. Taboada Fung, A.Y. 2019-2020; Schadenfreudemetertest (Geist), design by A. Arosio, L. Bernini, E. Coppo, E. Monasteri, F. Testa, A.Y. 2019-2020; TOD, design by G. Bonassi, M. Bracchi, S. Casavola, D. Renzulli, T. Stragà, M. Visini, A.Y. 2020-2021; Proxy by Nextnet, design by A. Avanzi, L. Baraldi, S. Cellura, A. Nodari, A.Y. 2021-2022.

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Those ‘machines’ are intended as “object personas”: an extension of the design research and educational process arguing for design fiction as an important methodological tool. Design fiction represents a speculative mode of thinking that can disclose new questions and unconventional opportunities [21].

4 Communicative Machines

As Peace affirms, “a work of speculative design is often an object […]. While prototyping deals with how an idea could be realised, speculative design asks what if that idea was prevalent in our society? Would we want it?” [22]. Those statements appear to be consistent with the learning process’s aims and the following results. Each project has been developed (from the concept to the final prototype) over five months. Results are of different scales (from installations to home devices) and show a range of output using various approaches among the variety of critical and speculative ones.

During the 2019–2020 Academic Year, the assigned main theme was ‘Death’ (http://morte13.labsintesi-c1.info/); an intriguing and demanding issue, especially considering that just after a few months, we had all to front it directly because of the pandemic. Out of 13 projects, it could be interesting and helpful to look at two of them deeper.

Micromort, a fictional currency connecting nationality and the value of death, emphasises that death always has a different social value depending on where it occurred or who has been involved. The critical and political position behind the project is that this value depends on how the western world perceives itself. The speculation is materialised into a ‘stock exchange monolith’, using this solid metaphor for engaging the user. Thanks to an algorithm (Hades 2.0) that considers the GDP per capita, population and number of violent deaths of each nation between 2000 and 2017, Micromort calculates the price of every single death worldwide. More than 21.000 real data items have been collected from public databases. The consistency of the Communication Machine design (a monolith), the data visualisation and the user interaction/interface reveal the critical position of the students (https://micromortproject.github.io/micromort/).

Geist (Gedankliches Experimentelles Institut für Spezielle Therapien, which means Experimental Institute of Thought for Special Therapies) is a fictional scientific research centre that studies unknown aspects of the human mind as the Schadenfreude, the pleasure caused by others’ bad luck or death. A fictional test (Schadenfreudemetertest) forces the users to simultaneously watch six videos of real-life events, including deaths and killings. The machine is equipped with an Eye Tracker that follows the movements of the user’s gaze, analysing how long people focus on each video. Another essential part is the headrest, equipped with two blinkers with integrated speakers that play the audio and constrain the users’ movements while watching the videos. At the end of the experiment, the Eye Tracker’s collected data are processed by customised software that prints a report, showing the trend of the user’s Schadenfreude level. The whole experience aims to reflect on human morbid curiosity about death, which tends to be emphasised by media and social channels, through fiction with several communicative levels: a consistent visual identity inspired by Dieter Rams’ design for Braun, which has been developed both in two and three dimensions; the accurate selection of videos showing well-known events; the final data visualisation; an ironic narrative (http://geistlab.de/).

Tod, a sort of home device developed during the Academic Year 2020–2021 (http://retuals.labsintesi-c1.info/), intended to speculate on the ritual of deads commemoration, starting from the question “What if commemorating the dead was an evaluated performance?”. That year the theme was ‘human rituals’ to explore a permanent pandemic condition. Tod blends into the environment and the everyday life of its users just like every high-tech appliance. It guides the user to the proper commemoration of the dead by suggesting the right frequency and execution. The Core symbolizes each deceased person; it is a portable device made ‘alive’ by the glow of an ever-changing luminous ‘will-o’-the-wisp’. The user can perform the memorial service by placing it in his home hub and periodically performing three tasks: Contact, Conversation and Remembrance. In this case, the speculation, if compared to the two previous cases presented, moves from a pure critical goal to a design future one, assuming the possibility of such a home ritual (https://toditalia.com/).

Finally, during the Academic Year 2021–2022 (http://fattididati.labsintesi-c1.info/home.html), having as the main theme ‘Daily Data’, another home device, named Nexnet Proxy, intended to speculate on the impact of the internet on the environment. The internet machine consumes energy and produces tons of CO2 every day, although people continue to see it as ethereal and pure. In a fictional future plagued by an economic and social crisis, the ecological impact of the internet is out of control. Each country is forced to ban the internet planetwide, and Nexnet Proxy is the only device capable of generating connection through user effort. Although the scenario may appear simplistic, it is possible to position Nextnet as a critical-speculative project, imagining a possible future that could also be an alternative present considering the current conditions of our planet.

5 Conclusions

The four shortly discussed projects developed using the presented pedagogy process interpret the different assigned themes (death, human rituals, daily data) starting from different points of view, developing different scenarios, using various technologies and media, from analog to digital ones. A natural consequence is that each design has to be theoretically discussed and physically verified by making prototypes. Students are pushed to experiment with visual expressions, user experiences and tangible interactions between two and three dimensions, involving inevitably the fourth, the one of time. Students unveil unconventional approaches to the project and explore alternative design values, forms, and representations [23, 24].

The speculation and the critical stance are translated actively by using Communication Design. By adopting this approach, students are led to assume a critical attitude towards their position as designers, reflecting their practice’s social and political implications. It is necessary and urgent for the designer to be trained to “reflect-in-action” to become a “researcher in the practice context” [7] and not just to solve problems.

Auger et al. [10] confirm this position as follows: “as a pedagogical tool, speculative design – at its best – opens students’ minds to brave new worlds: to critical and creative interventions, transgression, and change, as well as the possibility of applying design principles and tools in very different contexts and types of projects. The speculative approach allows students to create a set of tools and a language for understanding the consequences of their design practice. It is particularly stimulating as an educational tool because it foregrounds criticism, self-reflection, and a move away from familiar practices.”

Where design has been paradoxically left behind by its own modernist promises [25], showing the limits of its deterministic spirit, it becomes necessary to re-think new roles for design itself [26]. As stated by Bauman [27], in a post-modern society rife with uncertainties, it is in the ambiguity itself that a transformative potential can be found. For this reason, the proposed teaching approach opens a space for intellectual exploration, demanding a tangible Communication Design translation of such speculation, which can be discussed and evaluated. Furthermore, today, this approach appears even more plausible in a period of new uncertainties. As a designer, far beyond the overconfident utopia of trying to change the world, using Communication Design tools and methods to understand better and critically observe reality may be a first step in contributing and being humble and better citizens of our time.

Using this approach in an educational context aims at opening the disciplinary fields in a consistent and contemporary manner, breaking its borders, and looking to anti-disciplinarity as a necessity for future designers.