Task 12: Speculative Futures

Prompt: Describe or narrate a scenario about a piece of clothing found a generation into a future in which society as we know it has come apart. Your description should address issues related to citizenship and elicit feelings of excitement.

In the Almost-Now, machines and AI manufacture everything with perfect cold precision. As a result, VR is the norm, and every body is encased in the perfected ‘Teslasuit.’ These skintight suits use integrated EMS (Electro Muscular Stimulation) to allow wearers to feel and experience any desirable motion or sensation. A second skin per se and necessary to communicate with the synced-in smart environment surrounding us whether at home, work or play, these suits are durable, hygienic and indestructible with self-repairing capabilities so that one will suffice for a lifetime. Waterproof, tear-proof, with built-in features to take care of waste excretion or other physical needs, they need never come off. With the advanced version of ZOZO’s built-in 3D scanning tech, the suit grows with the individual, and when the encased body expires, this vital casing integrates Infinity Mushrooms tech to biodegrade the corpse into the environment safely.

In the Almost-Now, democratic socialism has taken over and class privilege has ceased, the state issues these unisex suits to every child at birth, playing an important role in unifying the masses with a choice of standard black, white and grey coating. 

But recent events have disturbed the status quo. The discovery of an ancient relic has instigated unrest and awakened primal desires thought long-forgotten. An obsolete cloth – hand-marked, hand-woven, rough to the touch, physical, torn, coloured, weathered and frail. An ode to a reality bygone, weighted with stories untold of girl and boy, man and beast, sacred and profane, belonging, longing and separation.

Advanced AI has partially uncoded this crude tapestry of an outdated reality, and on popular demand, it will soon be available for upload into new and existing Teslasuits for trial runs. Users will now be able to vir/partially experience the culture and emotions of the primitives that created this simple object and speculate on the rudimentary nature of their existence.  

References:

Kapfunde, M. (n.d.). Muchaneta Kapfunde. https://fashnerd.com/2017/11/zozosuit-hitech-fashion-tech-wearable/

MacDonald, F. (2016, February 16). This Mushroom Suit Digests Your Body After You Die : ScienceAlert. ScienceAlert. https://www.sciencealert.com/this-mushroom-suit-digests-your-body-after-you-die

Teslasuit. (2022, December 2). Full Body VR Haptic Suit with Motion Capture | TESLASUIT. https://teslasuit.io/products/teslasuit-4/

V2_ Lab for the Unstable Media. (n.d.). V2_ Lab for the Unstable Media. https://v2.nl/works/the-mushroom-death-suit

Reflection:

I loved the reading and the assigned task this week, probably because of my background in architecture and design. Many of the references in the assigned reading were familiar to me, and the purpose of speculative design resonated firmly once placed in the historical timeline of the development of the design industry via the Beyond Speculative Design: Past, Present – Future reading (2021). 

I primarily used the diagram from Chapter 2 (Mitrović et al., pg. 27, 2021) to structure my methodology for this task, as it made a lot of sense. So I tried to root the scenario firmly in existing technologies but then extrapolated “to create a modified version of the world” (pg.28) while still trying to maintain “plausibility.” I also introduced relevant-to-me social and cultural issues but left these open-ended and finally tried to end in a circle right back at the start… with the speculated now speculating. 

Reference:

Mitrović, I., Auger, J., Hanna, J., & Helgason, I. (2021). Beyond Speculative Design: Past, Present – Future.