Worldbuilding starts with world seeing.

The workshop FICTION/REALITY took designing fictional planets as a starting point for understanding and translating how the participants see and feel the world around them. It involved prototyping and storytelling as tools for critical self-reflection.

Through unconventional research tools, the participants were encouraged to use fiction to open up possibilities for and conversations about real-world futures.

A critical part of the design practice is understanding from which perspective the designer designs from. The workshop began with students choosing a fictional planet, each with a unique scenario: a planet where everyone is allergic to water, another where people can only walk in a straight line, one where people can teleport and one where people shrink when angry. From there, they developed their planets – from fashion and architecture to the economy and how relationships work. Combining fast and slow, intuitive and structured ways of building a fictional world, a philosophy emerged from each planet. The participants realized that each world is a reflection of the real one and the way that they feel about it.