Overview

The [Manufacture d Armes de Saint-Etienne] catalogue itself, however its actual existence is rich in meaning: its exhaustive nomenclatural aims have the resounding cultural implication that access to objects may be obtained only via the pages of a catalogue which may be leafed through for the pleasure of it, as one might a great manual, a book of tales, a menu. J. Baudrillard, THE SYSTEM OF OBJECTS

This chapter includes a commentary on five conceptual design proposals for post-optimal electronic objects: Electroclimates, When Objects Dream..., Thief of Affections, Tuneable Cities, and Faraday Chair.

Each proposal is a material tale, a process of investigation. They are value-fictions : they try to maintain a degree of technological realism while exploring values different from those current. Their subject is the role of electronic objects in the aesthetic inhabitation of a rapidly dematerializing, ubiquitous, and intelligent environment. They explore ways of presenting conceptual designs as investigations and processes rather than as finite things in themselves. Each proposal is a radio, an interface between the electromagnetic environment of hertzian space and people. Each explores different forms of realism: technical, functional, social, and psychological.

The proposals are not intended for mass production or even prototyping, but for mass consumption through publication and exhibition. They ask questions rather than provide answers and should stimulate discussion in the way a film or novel might. Each focuses on different design issues. Thief of Affections explores designing role models and psychosocial narratives. From Electrocli-mates emerges ideas for genotypes, pseudo-interviews, and poetic products. When...