“Trying to predict the future is a mug’s game. But increasingly it’s a game we all have to play because the world is changing so fast and we need to have some sort of idea of what the future is actually going to be like because we are going to have to live there, probably next week.” (Douglas Adams) In the last semester, the Dare’n’Do Seminar (DND) explored the topic of Sci-Fi from different angles. During three successive phases, external impulses from rapidly developing scientific fields were treated first discursively, then narratively and finally experimentally.

 

Meeting in digital space, experts gave an introduction into Data-driven Design, Robotics, DNA and Nanotechnology, Cybernetics and Information Science, politics, astronomy and Space Art. Students got confronted with the genre of science fiction in literature, film, video game or art, leading to the introduction of a variety of topics into their discussion. Research on developments of technology, speculative approaches within and outside the design discipline and dealt with the philosophical subject of transhumanism, ethics and beyond. To create their own futuristic thoughts and intuitive ideas, an experimental and unbiased transfer process into individual projects followed after each session.

 

During the semester, with the help of external catalysts and ongoing discourses, the students were able to develop an approach towards technological developments and created future visions based on current scientific knowledge. At the Rundgang 2020, the DND Seminar is presenting 5 digital spaces inviting the visitors to experience the past 5 Sessions retrospectively via an open-source platform. In this virtual space thoughts, questions and ideas raised during and after the sessions float, seemingly unconnected in space. It is up to the visitor to read, connected, progress or forget these. Along with it a selection of individual transfer projects are presented, showing the variety of directions the students followed experimentally after each session.

 

I SCIENCE

Session 1: Human & Machine

Session 2: Becoming alive!

Session 3: Technology in postcapitalist production

II FICTION

Session 4: The narrative power of Sci-Fi

Session 5: The creative power of Sci-Fi

Come and explore!