Industrial Design

Unreal by Design

In their talk, Anthony Dunne and Fiona Raby will discuss projects and ideas from their recent book “Not Here, Not Now.” Other disciplinary imaginations go far beyond what design deems permissible, reminding us that reality may not be as realistic as we think. There are quantum physicists who entertain the idea that new worlds branch off from this one each time a choice is made; cosmologists who speculate that one day, we may be able to create baby universes in a lab; and philosophers, who engage in possible-worlds talk where, in one world, there is indeed a King of France. Dunne & Raby believe design has much to learn from these fields, and that we need to create environments that put design into conversation with philosophy, literature, and speculative forms of science. Fields that have a long history of working with ideas that stretch the imagination and allow us to see beyond the constraints of existing realities. Encouraging designers, to become what the writer Ursula Le Guin has called, “realists of a larger reality.” A reality, that fully embraces the imagination and all that is yet to exist, or might never exist.

Anthony Dunne and Fiona Raby are partners in the design studio Dunne & Raby. Through design projects and writing, they explore how speculative thought from science, philosophy, and literature can inform and expand design practice. Their books include Hertzian Tales (1999), Design Noir (2001/2021), Speculative Everything (2013), and Not Here, Not Now (2025). Their projects are featured in numerous permanent collections, including the Museum of Modern Art, the Victoria and Albert Museum, and MAK Vienna. Their research has been supported by organisations such as the European Commission, Wellcome Trust, EPSRC, Arts Council England, and the Mellon Foundation. From 2016 to 2015 they served as University Professors of Design and Social Inquiry at Parsons/The New School. Between 2005 and 2015, Anthony was Professor and Head of the Design Interactions programme at the Royal College of Art, and Fiona was Reader in Design Interactions, as well as Professor of Industrial Design at the University of Applied Arts, Vienna. They received the inaugural MIT Media Lab Award in 2015 and were named Royal Designers for Industry and Life Fellows of the Royal Society of Arts in 2021.

dunneandraby.co.uk

Tuesday, April 14, 17:30
2.A05 Viaduktraum, ZHdK
Public & free

Dirty Hands is an invitation to explore new ways of working—ways that are hands-on and reflective, experimental and critical, proactive and self-aware, deeply rooted in practice. It embraces contradiction, the tension between creation and consequence, and the need for design to evolve.

This lecture series explores the entangled relationships between design, ecology, technology, and society. It highlights the urgent need for approaches that bridge the gap between planetary limitations and human action.

We invite thinkers and makers to navigate these uncertainties with us—to get their hands dirty, share their practice, and rethink what design can and can't do.

Kindly supported by the Ikea Foundation Switzerland