Not Here, Not Now
Speculative Thought, Impossibility, and the Design Imagination
Published on 6. May 2025
Book
Hardback
360 pages
978-0-262-04966-5 (ISBN)
Description
What it means to design at a time when, for many people, the future seems to have become an impossibility. When reality fails us, what can design do? Question design s relationship to reality, as Anthony Dunne and Fiona Raby do, in this exhilarating, yet thoughtful journey to the edges of science, philosophy, and literature to find new ways of thinking about the possible and about the meaning, function, and place of design in that speculative world of 'not here, not now.' A conceptual travelogue of sorts, Not Here, Not Now brings together words, images, and objects that capture, in design form, some of the ideas encountered along the way. Itself a design experiment, the book explores ways to bring these ideas into conversation with objects through imagined archives, libraries, glossaries, taxonomies, lists, tales, and essays. The design responses in Not Here, Not Now to a stone raft, e.g., or a vegetable lamb, swatches of imaginary colors, a pocket universe in the home, objects undergoing space-time collapse are, like the most compelling utopias, impossible by design, aiming instead to nourish the creative, intellectual, and imaginative ground from which new possibilities, still unknown, might begin to emerge.
Reviews / Votes
"Not Here, Not Now successfully demonstrates the centrality of Dunne & Raby to contemporary design. By examining projects oscillating between reality and fiction, this must-read travelogue encourages bold thought for designers, scholars, artists, and beyond."-Alexandra Midal, Professor, University of Art and Design, HEAD-Geneve (HES-SO); author of The Murder Factory and Design by Accident
"In an age of crisis, design is expected to produce bold solutions, yet designers are trapped in systems that allow hardly any deviation from the norm. Dunne & Raby have dedicated themselves to expanding the design imaginary, and this book is a valuable toolbox of approaches that open up a world of many worlds."
-Justin McGuirk, Director, Future Observatory
"In a quest for the radical potential of a more expansive reality, Dunne and Raby invite designers to engage the world with a speculative what-if sensibility. Refusing the stifling foreclosure of the future into the shape of what is most statistically probable, the authors' impossible objects are alluring thought experiments of the not-yet-here, however vulnerable and uncertain that world might be."
-Rania Ghosn, Associate Professor of Architecture and Urbanism, MIT; Founding Principal, DESIGN EARTH
"What might it mean to design, not for the world as it is, but for the world as it should be? This visionary book surveys a range of 'impossible' designs, helping us to imagine how they might become possible, or even probable."
-Steven Shaviro, Emeritus Professor of English, Wayne State University
More details
Language
English
Place of publication
Cambridge (Massachusetts)
United States
Publishing group
MIT Press Ltd
Product notice
sewn/stitched
Cloth over boards
Illustrations
180 COLOR ILLUS.
Dimensions
Height: 230 mm
Width: 185 mm
Thickness: 27 mm
Weight
770 gr
ISBN-13
978-0-262-04966-5 (9780262049665)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions
Anthony Dunne | Fiona Raby
Not Here, Not Now
Speculative Thought, Impossibility, and the Design Imagination
E-Book
05/2025
MIT Press
€39.49
Available for download
Persons
Anthony Dunne is University Professor of Design and Social Inquiry at The New School/Parsons in New York. He is the author of Hertzian Tales (MIT Press). Fiona Raby is University Professor of Design and Social Inquiry at The New School/Parsons in New York. Her projects are included in several permanent collections, including the Museum of Modern Art, New York; the Victoria and Albert Museum, London; and the MAK, Vienna. Together they are the award-winning partners behind the design studio Dunne & Raby. They are also Co-Directors of the Designed Realities Studio at The New School/Parsons in New York. Their books include Hertzian Tales, Design Noir, and Speculative Everything.
Content
Acknowledgements
Introduction: Realists of a Larger Reality
1. An Archive of Impossible Objects
Objects Made From Words
A Machine-Generated Impossible Object
An Object from an Alternative Visual History of Quantum Computing
Swatches of Forbidden, Chimerical, and Imaginary Colors
A Pocket Universe in the Home
Objects Undergoing Space-Time Collapse
A Stone Raft
An Object from One of Einstein's Dreams
An Object from an Alternate Quantum Imaginary
A Human, Imagined Through a Generalized Nonhuman Umwelt
A Flag for Biomia
A Vegetable Lamb
2. Quantum Commonsense: New Metaphors, Images and Concepts?
3. Unreal by Design
4. A Public Lending Library of Things
5. The United Micro Kingdoms (UMK), a Traveller's Tale
6. Once Possible, Now Impossible: A Partial Inventory of National Dreams Made Physical
7. A Nonstandard, Incomplete Glossary of the Not Here, Not Now
C/D: By Way of a Conclusion.
Bibliography
List of Illustrations and Credits
Introduction: Realists of a Larger Reality
1. An Archive of Impossible Objects
Objects Made From Words
A Machine-Generated Impossible Object
An Object from an Alternative Visual History of Quantum Computing
Swatches of Forbidden, Chimerical, and Imaginary Colors
A Pocket Universe in the Home
Objects Undergoing Space-Time Collapse
A Stone Raft
An Object from One of Einstein's Dreams
An Object from an Alternate Quantum Imaginary
A Human, Imagined Through a Generalized Nonhuman Umwelt
A Flag for Biomia
A Vegetable Lamb
2. Quantum Commonsense: New Metaphors, Images and Concepts?
3. Unreal by Design
4. A Public Lending Library of Things
5. The United Micro Kingdoms (UMK), a Traveller's Tale
6. Once Possible, Now Impossible: A Partial Inventory of National Dreams Made Physical
7. A Nonstandard, Incomplete Glossary of the Not Here, Not Now
C/D: By Way of a Conclusion.
Bibliography
List of Illustrations and Credits