IEEE Technology and Society Magazine - December 2016 - 38

begins with a careful examination of the current, "onthe-ground" reality in the world builders' chosen locale.
The group of world builders then extrapolate forward by
introducing chosen disruptors in order to envision the
direction this world may take in the next twenty, thirty, or
x number of years.
The top level categories that are addressed in this distant read include the general needs and conditions of any
society, which range from health, agriculture, architecture, waste-management, technology, entertainment, to
ritual, and so on. Yet, as the world build progresses,
designers begin to take deeper dives into the situated
experiences of the world from the perspective of individual characters. This narrative-driven process enables the
group to identify points of overlap or tension between different top-level categories that may have otherwise gone
unnoticed. Figure 8 illustrates how the world builders
begin mapping larger issues around their characters, considering different issues at scale. By viewing the world
through the eyes of multiple characters, the designers as
a collective can identify a variety of tensions and overlaps
that are specific to the needs and concerns of each character. In this way, the world build becomes a synthesis of
so-called "top-down" and "bottom-up" perspectives.
While similar to the ethnographic methods employed
in the related fields of critical and speculative design,
those of world building differ in some key ways. In his
explication of the use of ethnographic research in speculative design, James Auger draws attention to its affordances for framing "the environment and context in
which speculative future products or services would
exist," and for "grounding the concept in a familiar or
logical reality" [1, p. 12]. While such affordances are certainly invaluable for world building, it should be noted
that the world builders' relationships to "products and
services" are substantially different. For speculative and
critical design, the focus is primarily upon the discrete
object or technology; for world builders, however, the
world itself is the designed product, which is entered
and understood through engagement with the objects,
technologies, and narratives that have been spun during
its creation. The function of narrative is understood differently in world building as well. Speculative design
practices as well as design fiction employ narrative to
depict the designed object "in quotidian domestic contexts that exaggerate the impact of applied science and
encourage reflection on the information inherent in the
work" [4, pp. 340-341], or seek to provoke speculation
in the viewer of a design object about the kind of world
or story in which such an object would have meaning
and purpose [2, p. 76]. World building, by contrast, has
a much more intimate and reciprocal relationship with
narrative, employing it both as a generative method to
envision new societies and the technologies with which

they coexist, and as a framing device for a mediated
experience of the world itself.
This methodological dimension of world building is
highly effective as a generative process for envisioning
the future of technology. It foresees the possibilities for
technology not through the identification and targeting of
narrow markets, demographics, or income scales, but
rather through systems-thinking and reality-based speculation on the possible futures of a world's institutions,
customs, everyday practices, economies, architecture,
beliefs, and so on. In short, world building takes a holistic
view that acknowledges not only the distanced control
and strategic dissemination of technologies from the corporate or institutional level, but also the situated, bricolage nature of everyday, technological use-cases. Thus,
world building provides models for realistic speculation
upon new technologies and their cascading effects upon
a society ex situ, as an alternative to more conventional,
more narrowly focused consumer design and manufacturing practices that release products into the wild where
their effects must often be wrestled with in situ.

Author Information
Laura Cechanowicz earned the M.A. degree in Film Studies and an M.F.A. degree in Animation. She is pursuing
the Ph.D. degree in interdisciplinary Media Arts and Practice at the University of Southern California School of
Cinematic Arts, Los Angeles, CA. Email: laura.cnz@gmail
.com.
Brian Cantrell is a researcher and media designer
working in the field of data representation. He is currently an iMAP Ph.D. student at the University of Southern
California School of Cinematic Arts, Los Angeles, CA.
Email: brn.cntrll@gmail.com.
Alex McDowell is a narrative designer, Creative Director of 5D Global Studio, and a Professor of Practice at
University of Southern California's Cinematic Arts MA+P
division. He is Director of the World Building Media Lab
and Institute. Email: alexmcdowell1@mac.com.
This article also includes the original written creative
contributions of Teresa Bosch, Joshua Dawson, Eduardo
Oliveira, Yining Zhou, and Ruslan Akun.

References

[1] J. Auger, "Speculative design: Crafting the speculation," Digital
Creativity, vol. 24, no. 1, pp. 11-35, 2013.
[2] A. Dunne, F. Raby, Speculative Everything: Design, Fiction, and
Social Dreaming. Cambridge, MA: M.I.T. Press, 2013.
[3] J. Halse, "Ethnographies of the possible," in Design Anthropology
Theory and Practice, pp. 180-196.
[4] M. Malpass, "Between wit and reason: Defining associative, speculative, and critical design in practice," Design and Culture, vol. 5,
no. 3, pp. 333-356, 2013.
[5] T. Otto, R. C. Smith, "Design anthropology: A distinct style of knowing," in Design Anthropology Theory and Practice, W. Gunn, T. Otto,
and R.C. Smith, Eds. London, U.K.: Bloomsbury, 2013, pp. 1-29.

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