There is a connection between our lost faith in a better future and the growing popularity of science fiction, German A. Duarte, Andrea Facchetti, and Seçil Uğur Yavuz from the Faculty of Art and Design at the Free University of Bozen-Bolzano in Northern Italy argue. By analyzing the work of author Philip K. Dick, they identified various forms of future fiction.
The trio was particularly interested in the translation of future fiction into images. What can be described rather vaguely on paper must be materialized when a book is adapted for film. The future technology must then, more than written in language, remain intact in a visual story emphasizing how the technology works precisely and what the social implications are.
Duarte, Facchetti, and Uğur Yavuz organized a project at their university in which they theoretically investigated science fiction’s influence on our current perception of technology and designed the technology itself. Or, to be precise: the technology that Philip K. Dick described in his books translated to the current context.
With the cooperation of ten guest authors, this publication is a report of that intriguing project. Dick was chosen on purpose. His work as a science fiction author is influential and deeply permeated contemporary pop culture. After he died in 1982, directors ventured into filming parts of his stories. Examples of this are Blade Runner (1982), Total Recall (1990 and 2012), Minority Report (2002), and the series The Man In The High Castle (2015). How the technology invented by Dick is used in the stories depends on the time in which the film was made, the authors claim. They compare, among other things, the two versions of ‘Total Recall’ in which the memory implants work entirely differently.
The theoretical part of this book is written in an accessible way. In particular, the chapter in which Domenico Gallo translates the role of artificial intelligence in Dick’s work to the current situation has an interesting twist: the author hopes that technological objects will show humanity what a better world can look like but this cannot be expected from humans.
The descriptions of the design experiments conducted during the project are exciting. For example, the design process to develop the software that was devised to implant false memories from the novella ‘We Can Remember It For You Wholesale’ (1966), on which the film ‘Total Recall’ is based, is described in detail and illustrated with images of sketches and prototypes. The process of deconstructing the essence of the original technology and then reconstructing it based on a contemporary context is elaborated upon in detail.
Between the lines, the three initiators argue for a different way of looking at (not yet existing) technology by understanding its material essence. The philosophy of technology, in particular, can still learn a great deal from this. This makes ‘Towards The Realm of Materiality’ an ideal study for critical and speculative designers and essential for philosophers who dare to look beyond academic texts.
Towards The Realm Of Materiality: Designing Philip K. Dick’s Non-Existing Technologies by German A. Duarte, Andrea Facchetti, and Seçil Uğur Yavuz (ed) is published by Nero Editions in Rome.
This review is originally published in Dutch in the print edition of Gonzo (circus) magazine #184.