Program Overview

Introduction to the Speculative Design Program

The Speculative Design program at UC San Diego is an artistic approach that emphasizes new ideas and solutions for the present, focusing on critical speculative thinking and consideration of people, beings, and ideas usually marginalized by design. This program prepares students for creative arts-based design practices, engaging in research-based art practice, interdisciplinary writing, and design for social change.

Program Description

The Speculative Design Major bridges computing in the arts, film and photography, digital media, studio art, public culture and community-based practice, and history, criticism, and theory. It encourages students to engage in the transformation of communities, ecologies, technology, and geopolitics through design. The program offers a mix of studio, laboratory, lecture, and seminar classes, with each student building a portfolio that reflects aesthetic, social, and critical design thinking.

Major Curriculum Sheet

The department is implementing changes to the curriculum, and students should select the appropriate curriculum sheet based on their declaration date. There are different curriculum sheets for students declared Fall 2025 and later, Fall 2021 to Spring 2025, and prior to Fall 2021.

Faculty Information

The program features a diverse range of faculty members, including:

• Memo Akten, who works with emerging technologies as an artistic medium and subject matter
• Amy Alexander, who teaches artist-inventor-programmers with a focus on critical approaches to machine learning and computer vision
• Lisa Cartwright, who teaches design history and theory, focusing on art and media's relationship to science and technology
• Jordan Crandall, who teaches narrative fiction engaged with technoscientific research
• Teddy Cruz, who teaches topics including public culture, public space, art and the city, and design of urban ecologies
• Ricardo Dominguez, who teaches Speculative Design with a focus on learning from indigenous futurism, Farm Worker futurism, Afro-futurism, and design justice communities
• Alena Williams, who teaches courses focusing on the aesthetic, social, and political implications of technology in visual representation
• Pinar Yoldas, who develops work within biological sciences and digital technologies through architectural installations, kinetic sculpture, sound, video, and drawing

Program Skills and Outcomes

The program teaches students:

• Design research, concept, and production skills, including 2D and 3D computer rendering and modeling, prototype and object construction oriented to current social and environmental concerns
• Conceptual and rhetorical strategies for creative and critical thinking about design, design values, and design possibilities and outcomes
• Understanding and responding to human and nonhuman contexts
• Mobilizing public interests through design strategies

Post-Graduation Opportunities

The program prepares students to:

• Work in design professions such as architecture, graphic design, web design, environmental design
• Engage in arts-based design and/or media practice
• Pursue design teaching
• Prepare for higher education in any of the above fields with the goal of professional development and/or teaching in a college or university

Equipment, Software, and Tools

The program utilizes a range of equipment, software, and tools, including:

• Computers
• 3D printers
• Photo and video equipment
• Milling and manufacture equipment
• Laser engravers and cutters
• A variety of 2D and 3D design programs and software

Program Distinctions

The Speculative Design program is distinguished from similar programs by its:

• Emphasis on arts-based design training
• Critical and speculative approaches to design aesthetics and principles
• Design's social, historical, and philosophical frameworks
• Focus on creating ideas as well as things

Additional Information

Speculative design is an approach devoted to understanding that design may be used to ask "what if" questions, opening debate and discussion about what the planet needs and what we want for our future worlds. The program encourages students to engage in the transformation of communities, ecologies, technology, and geopolitics through design.

Major Requirements

The program requires students to complete courses in:

• Art History/Theory/Criticism (VA26)
• Media (VA27)
• Studio (VA28)
• ICAM (Interdisciplinary Computing and the Arts Major) (VA29)
• Speculative Design (VA30)