The alarm went off at 8.00 a.m. like every morning. The room was dark and cold and I did not want to wake up, but then the white screen in front of the bed turned on. The government says we need at least 30 minutes a day of UV light to control our vitamin D, therefore our ‘windows’ light up every morning while we get ready for work.
I miss having a curtain, but in a world without sun curtains make no sense. I looked at the screen and thought about when I looked out the window, a real window, watching the trains pass by. That was way before the pollution disaster when the sun was forever covered with smoke and the air was so contaminated we could not breathe it anymore. I guess we deserve it, it was basically our fault.
Life underground is not that bad, but I really miss my curtain. I still can feel the touch of the cord in my hand while pulling it to let the sunlight fill the room. How a simple movement of my arm activated the assembly of cords and pulleys to slowly pull the curtain up. How effortless was to draw and undrawn them, adjusting the light to my needs. It was almost like a ritual, an everyday meaningless ritual that told you that the day was about to begin.
Suddenly, the screen turned off and I got back into reality. No more curtains, windows or the sun, just the eternal cold and gloom of the underground.
Obviously, this story is not my actual experience with an everyday action. But after reading Dunne and Raby Speculative everything I thought it would be more interesting to explore speculative and critical design, alternative futures, fictional worlds, and dystopia to develop my narration.
Literature can “push the notion of fiction to the extreme, going well beyond logical worlds and more pragmatic world buildings” (1). Therefore, by having the opportunity to develop a narration, I could push the boundaries of fiction and create a future without sun and examine the consequences of it. In this dystopian world, we can examine the kind of relationship we have with the meaningless objects that surround us, such as curtains. To be able to do that, we need to “allow our imagination to wander, to momentarily forget how things are now and wonder about how things could be” (2). Is when we are able to imagine this world without sun that curtains become a more precious and vital piece of design, not only because of its usefulness but because it is part of our own experience.
At the end, this little story only wants to show the bonds we have with everyday designs and actions and how little we are aware of them.
(1) Dunne , A. and Raby, F. (2013) Speculative everything. Cambridge: The MIT Press. Pg. 71
(2) Dunne , A. and Raby, F. (2013) Speculative everything. Cambridge: The MIT Press. Pg. 3
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