Anab Jain clearly delivers an innovative, disturbing vision in her talk “Design for the new normal”. It’s a vision non dissimilar from the positivist view of singularitarians, but that sees technology not only as a tool of empowerment, but as the vehicle of accelerated human confusion that she calls superdensity.
Contrary to the singularity, superdensity is not a climax, but rather a state of flux where technologies disrupt each other continuously and this state of disruption becomes “the New Normal”.
And how could the new normal not come with a set of fashionable new rules?
In the New Normal “technology is open source, patents are old fashioned, ideas are crowdsourced, people are products, innovation is subversive, design stars are not worshiped”. I would add also that rules, as the ones stated above, are frequently disobeyed in the New Normal.
Anab Jain, founder of the design agency superflux, is clearly ready for this state of chaos and suggests some design strategies to connect with the weirdness of our times.
Her talk at NEXT 2013 in Berlin was also complimented by closing keynote speaker extraordinaire Bruce Sterling. If the design fiction guy approves of the New Normal, then you should definitely watch the video below or read through the slides on the superflux website.