To make new technology sexy

When scientists introduce technology in everyday life they are often met with distrust and objections. Just look at the public debate on genetically modified food.But how will new technology be used in the future? And what dilemmas will we be debating tomorrow?

That is what Anthony Dunne is challenging his design students with at London Royal College of Arts. His sees his task as designer to make new technology sexy and useful – to make it enter every day life.

- The challenge for designers is to make technology relevant to people. Today we are facing new questions: Should we implement technology at all? And how do we do it?

At the seminar Dunne presented several projects that his students have been working on.

Meat of the future!
It is possible for scientists to let body cells generate and grow. Maybe in the future it will be possible to grow a steak from a meat cell from an animal. Could that be a concept of a new franchise restaurant? How would such a steak look like? And what will it be called?
Is it ethical to develop the technology in this direction? Or is it unethical not to do it – in a world where millions are starving?

Biojewellery
It is also possible to grow bone cells in laboratories - doctors are already using these artificial bones in surgery. But maybe this technology could also be used in other matters. Would you find it romantic to have a wedding ring grown from you and your lover’s bones?
www.biojewellery.com

Anthony Dunne:
- As consumers we put the moral issues aside. Often it’s a question of weather we like it or not - or if it has the right price. As designers we need to take this debate. Not just from a theoretical ethic point of view, but focusing on how the design effect our everyday life.

Comments

[Brett Patching]

Rasmus, you write that Anthony Dunne's task as designer is "to make new technology sexy and useful".

I think Tony Dunne fundamentally questions the role of technologies in our lives through design. For example, Dunne & Raby's BioLand project investigates design as a tool for critical reflection on the social and ethical implications of biotechnology.

So it's not about utility and desirability: it's about much more fundamental issues.