ABSTRACT
Human relationships, intimacy and the role of technology within it constantly change, catapulted in 2020 by COVID-19. We take this social rupture as an opportunity to reimagine possible futures for love, friendship, and kinships. Through design futuring and related approaches, we offer five prompts we developed for imagining alternative futures exploring a diverse range of intimacies. Through generating responses to the prompts, we offer alternative intimate futures as well as reflections on how such 'prompts for futuring' can be generative for design research. Our work extends calls for diversifying design futuring, imploring design researchers to consider diverse and inclusive ways of designing for futures, especially for human relationships and intimacy. © 2022 Owner/Author.
ABSTRACT
With the forced reboot of our lives due to the COVID-19 pandemic, our interpersonal relationships are nowhere yet everywhere. However, opportunities for initiating or maintaining friendships and romance in the physical world have dwindled. Within the context of India where multiple realities exist, the question arises - what is the future of these relationships? In this paper, we present the outcomes of a workshop looking at the future of relationships using design fiction. Participants worked in small teams to create scenarios that critically consider the future of love, friendships, and romance within the Indian context. Through the lenses of criticality, empowerment, and value creation, we examine the design scenarios and the design process including criticality of the designs, empowering experiences of the participants, and the perceived value gained from participating in such a workshop. Our findings indicate the potential of design fiction to allow participants to step out of their comfort zone into a critical stance in discussing love and intimacy. Based upon our findings, we discuss implications for design research, practice, and education. © 2021 Owner/Author.