Design and SF: an essay on intersection

spiral_designJulian Bleecker has written a fascinating essay on the intersection of science fiction and design and how they cross-pollinate, and how SF design (mostly movie-oriented) influence actual design, go read:

Design Fiction is making things that tell stories. It’s like science-fiction in that the stories bring into focus certain matters-of-concern, such as how life is lived, questioning how technology is used and its implications, speculating bout the course of events; all of the unique abilities of science-fiction to incite imagination-filling conversations about alternative futures.

It’s about reading P.K. Dick as a systems administrator, or Bruce Sterling as a software design manual. It’s meant to encourage truly undisciplined approaches to making and circulating culture by ignoring disciplines that have invested so much in erecting boundaries between pragmatics and imagination.

[via Boing Boing][image from stage88 on flickr]