World Building

Our world: a world where batteries were invented but technology inhibited their ability to become pocket sized.

In other words, all batteries are car battery sized.

Technological Impact

As an electrical grid still exists, massive technological advancement still occurs. Devices such as laptops and smart phones still exist (the factories in which they are produced are run on a power grid) but portable capability, due to battery size, has not been achieved.

This is manifest in many ways:

Portable phones, namely cellular phones, are widely avoided due to the incredible weight of its necessary car battery sized power system.  They do exist in homes, but are plugged into a wall. An occasional individual can be seen lugging a large backpack or briefcase in which a battery is connected.

Laptops are not used in classrooms on a frequent basis. This because most universities and schools cannot afford the massive quantities of power outlets needed to support thousands of laptops.

Portable photography and videography is still entirely analog. Even many film cameras are not used due to the need for a large, cumbersome battery. Analog cameras are relatively large and expensive.

Homes are laden with power outlets. Only wealthy individuals, or middle class individuals, can afford this luxury.

Social Impact

As an electrical grid still exists, modern communication, i.e. text messaging, facebooking (social media in general), still exist and are used frequently. The technology most largely impacted by battery size is photography and its subsequent ability to mold, shape, and meticulously create a self image.

Because the available portable cameras are so cumbersome in weight and size, they are used much less frequently. With this, individuals no longer feel the constant need and desire to create a fantastic life for themselves.

They live where they are through their own lens, not through an artificial lens, making images with others in mind.

Objects have meaning because personal interaction is crucial.

A third party experience (an individual, a camera, then a viewer) becomes obsolete and the world is viewed through the first person. The world is not a construct of pixels and code, but a physical, tangible, powerfully meaningful experience.

However, on the other hand, the magnificent ability of easy record keeping would be greatly diminished.

In Design Fiction, Julian Bleeker states, “Objects are totems through which a larger story can be told, or imagined or expressed. They are like artifacts from someplace else, telling stories about other worlds.”

Without photographs as records, new form of record keeping would have to be developed.

But in the end, as is often times concluded, human ingenuity is the motivating factor in all things. Systems are human, and humans are systems.

Group Members:

Mark Leavy

Steven Bills

Aaron Hinton

Bryce Bolick