Meet the expert: Frederik Deschuytter, Speculative Designer at Fred Erik and Lead designer in one of the Wanderful.stream innovation projects.
Frederik Deschuytter (°1993)
Function:Speculative Designer at Fred Erik
Residence: Brussels, Belgium
Children: none.
Favourite place in the Euregio:
“Garzweiler, an open-cast brown coal mine just over the German border near Maastricht.
It is an impressive place that both fascinates and disturbs. The machines that drive around are breathtaking beasts that come straight out of a Star Wars film. At the same time, the landscape makes you aware of the immense scale of our industry and its impact on the Earth.”
What is your favorite (design) design, product (in your life/work/interior)?
“My television, a Samsung The Serif designed by the Bouroullec brothers. The device has been designed as a piece of furniture in its own right, away from all stereotypical frames of mind surrounding electronics.
It is invariably the first thing guests notice in my flat and always the start of a good conversation about design.”
I dream of this design product or item and hope to have it someday:
“The Zooop,” an electric concept car designed and independently developed by Coqueline Courrèges.
After a career at the fashion brand Courrèges – where, among other things, she invented the mini-skirt – she devoted herself to developing an all-electric car. Not only the idea itself, but the way the vehicle has been designed – away from all stereotypical frames around cars – was revolutionary in 1997.
I don’t have a driving licence, but I would love to put the Zooop in the middle of my living room.”
I find this inspiring
design story/
Company:
As a designer, I really look forward to the work of fashion designer Marine Serre, whose label has become established after only a few years. She introduced a new kind of speculative futurism to the world of fashion in which circularity and sustainability are core values.
She innovatively transforms discarded fabrics and clothing into new wearable pieces. The way in which the label transcends the stuffy image that ecological clothing usually has and reaches a public that is not necessarily interested in circularity and sustainability is particularly interesting.”
This is an inspiring book that everyone should have read:
Material Matters
by Thomas Rau
& Sabine Oberhausen.
“The book presents a new economic model in which the consumer is no longer the owner but the user of products. It shows how problematic the objects and buildings around us are and sketches a realistic scenario of how things can be done differently.”
These are the movies, tv shows, websites/links, podcasts that I myself loved
and i wish someone had tipped me off much earlier:
Podcast: The Habitat
Serie: DEVS
Devs, from the same creator as
Ex Machina and Annihilation,
takes place behind the scenes of a major tech company in Silicon Valley.
It makes you think about the power of artificial intelligence,
quantum computers,
and the limits of our free will.
“The habitat” follows six volunteers who are isolated in an imitation Mars habitat, on a remote mountain in Hawaii. For a year, they work and live here as fictional astronauts. This experiment helps NASA understand the mental impact of living permanently on the red planet. This non-fiction podcast makes you think about the future, but also puts our lives on Earth in a different light.”
Film: Gatacca
A dystopian science-fiction film from 1997 that is, in my opinion, burningly topical. The story explores the impact of reproductive and genetic technologies and their consequences on our society.
Of particular note is a scene that takes place on a Concentrated-Solar-Farm, my favourite film scene ever.
These are must follows online (instagram/linkedin/blogs/websites)
This is an inspiring quote or beautiful life motto:
“As futurists we look for signals – small, often weird things. They are usually new technologies, new behaviors, new narratives that don’t fit into the mainstream, but that are often precursors of important transformations. We then try to discern the larger patterns that these signals herald to understand where they might lead ten or more years down the road.”
– Marina Gorbis
A quote that fairly accurately describes what I do as a speculative designer and how speculating differs from predicting.
I wish the world
and Wanderful.stream
I wish the world, and Wanderful.stream, a future in which people look beyond the here and now,
in which long-term thinking
is becoming the norm.
