This is what others are saying about WHAT IF...
WIRED - Bruce Sterling
*If you’re coming in late to the concept of “design fiction,” here’s the takeaway: Dunne and Raby mock-up some of the most provocative, edgy, unsettling gizmos in the world. They do this by modelling social relationships, emotional interactions and the political implications of objects and services, rather than the objects and services per se. So they do indeed create “fictions,” in that Dunne and Raby designs are poetic, objective-correlative expressions of unstable social situations. These objects are “fictions” about how we live — they perform much like Anthony Trollope’s 1875 social satire novel “The Way We Live Now” once performed.
*Somewhere over the cultural horizon, there might be a modern paranormal-romance flick where all the set design and props are done by Dunne and Raby. That film would be a very Casablanca of the contemporary crisis.
http://www.wired.com/beyond_the_beyond/2009/10/design-fiction-in-the-science-gallery/
Irish Times 08/10/09
The exhibition in Trinity College Dublin includes some eye-catching experiments such as a coin-flipping machine which demonstrate the result is not a matter of probability but physics. There is also an armchair which replicates take-off in a Soyez aircraft - scientist/artist Nelly Ben Hayoun has also created a contraption to create dark matter in the kitchen.
Artist Thomas Thwaites has replicated the cheapest toaster in the Argos catalogue by building one from scratch, mining iron, copper, nickel and mica himself. He describes it as "half-science, half-madness". The purpose to show how complicated the simplest appliance can be. Read more:
http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/ireland/2009/1008/1224256169013.html
Irish Independent 06/10/09
GREYHOUND dogs transformed into live medical devices, breath-smelling bees and machines able to read emotions are among the brave new world of emerging technology that will go on display this week.
Dublin's Science Gallery will open its doors on Thursday to one of the most jarring and controversial exhibitions in recent memory.
http://www.independent.ie/business/technology/dogs-life-ideas-from-a-crazy-future-1904959.html
Candy Collective
http://www.candycollective.com/index.php?/news/
Culch.ie
http://www.culch.ie/2009/10/05/what-if-we-could-modify-clouds-to-snow-ice-cream/
Niamh Redmond's blog
http://www.niamhredmond.org/2009/10/08/what-if-exhibition-at-the-science-gallery/
Stand in that gap blog
http://standinthatgap.blogspot.com/2009/10/science-gallery-what-if.html
Luciole Press Blog
Material Beliefs Blog
http://www.materialbeliefs.com/diary/2009/10/10/what-if/
Despoke Website