Date of Award
Spring 5-30-2015
Document Type
Thesis
Degree Name
Master of Fine Arts (MFA)
Department
Graphic Design
First Advisor
Benjamin Shaykin
Second Advisor
Clement Valla
Third Advisor
Bryn Smith
Abstract
Speculative Politics—Fictionalized Spectacle posits an alternate model for design practice. Borrowing from the genre of science fiction, this design approach activates consideration of possible realities and cultural forms. It raises questions and invents problems instead of solving them. By imagining technologies, policies, laws, and conditions that do not yet exist, design becomes an agent of investigation to highlight current and future social, cultural, and political conditions.
The projects within this thesis reconsider our present situations through methods of speculative documentation. The act of documentation becomes a process of manipulating notions of truth to render fictions from reality. Using subversion, instigation, satire, and a “What If” methodology, elements from traditional graphic design media are reframed as plausible and possible narratives. Some projects begin as self-reflexive investigations of a particular medium. Others propose possible futures of political organizations through fake collateral, creating documentation out of the unreal. What if the flags of America represented fragment iterations of our sub-nationalities, or if the United Nations was untied from its present, and contradictory, identity. It’s all open to questioning and up for debate.
Recommended Citation
Limphongpand, Prin, "Speculative politics -fictionalized spectacle" (2015). Masters Theses. 11.
https://digitalcommons.risd.edu/masterstheses/11
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