A virada especulativa no design: função e funcionalidade no design crítico especulativo

Abstract

In contemporary design production, we can verify critical and radical approaches, among them the speculative critical design, originating in the 1990s and with current resonances. Within this perspective, Anthony Dunne (2005) discusses how electronic objects lack cultural and aesthetic factors. Taking this study into account, Anthony Dunne and Fiona Raby (2013) propose a more critical and conceptual approach to the design of a sort of artifacts, which intend to make our lives more viable in the future, in idealized future scenarios, more adapted to what we desire. From the proposition of these authors and in counterpoint to them, Benjamin H. Bratton develops a series of researches in which he offers as an option an expanded view on critical and speculative design. This Bachelor Thesis investigates Speculative Critical Design (SCD), primarily through two concepts, para-functionality and hyper-functionality, the former developed by Anthony Dunne (2005) and the latter by Benjamin H. Bratton (2015, 2016, 2019). The major goal of the project is to examine the concepts associated with function and functionality proposed by the aforementioned authors in counterpoint to authors such as Bernd Löbach (2001; [1976]), Mike R. Baxter (2000; [1998]), and Bernhard E. Bürdek (2006; [1991]), establishing a comparative analysis between the meanings of the terms in these five authors. To this end, the text presents and situates the development of the design field, with emphasis on methodological approaches applied to the design project, observing the moment in which it was methodologically verified the need to approach, in a broader way, the undetermined problem-situations or those with many components and variables of analysis, including future scenarios explored in contemporary critical and speculative approaches. We intend with this work to provide contributions to the study on design methodology and on the critical and speculative approaches, which contribute to the analysis of the use function and the functionality of artifacts, thus expanding the field of reflection and application of design.