FCJ-142 Spectacles and Tropes: Speculative Design and Contemporary Food Cultures

Speculative design is a particularly inventive mode of design that is concerned with developing imaginative futures or alternate presents. Often, the purpose of speculative design is to prompt reflection on contemporary conditions and express possible implications of current trends in science and technology. Like all design, speculative design reproduces as well as invents culture and there are limits to the work it does. In this essay, I trace the ways speculative design reproduces contemporary food cultures through two projects: Guide to Free Farming (2009) and Family Whiskey (2010). From these projects I draw out and discuss two strategies of speculative design: the use of spectacle and the use of tropes. I describe how these strategies work to attract us to images and objects, and I identify their limits in providing content, meaning, and significance. In concluding, I consider how speculative design might enable more substantive engagement with issues.