Doing things backwards: the OWL project interviews

The OWL project is inspired by Arthur C. Clarke's Third Law of Technology Prediction: Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. It consists of a series of open and speculative body-devices designed without a pre-defined function and tested as design 'probes' in order to ascertain their functionality. While the initial forms emerge from an investigation of the body, their functionality are determined through use. The project fuses fine art and contemporary design processes to arrive at ambiguous outcomes whose functionality is being ascertained 'after the fact' through interviews, or 'probing'. While not necessarily antidesign, the methodology contrasts dramatically with traditional design processes, where the purpose and broad functionality of 'that which is being designed' is usually known in advance. It calls into question the validity of a traditional approach when trying to design 'sufficiently advanced technology'. In this paper we present our process and the theoretical scaffold that supports our underlying thinking. Our field of concerns includes enchantment and ambiguity as resources for design, encouraging 'magical thinking' and 'making strange