/TEACHING
GD 303: Experimental Design Practices
Spring 2023
Speculative Design Student Project
Project New Dawn
Spring 2023
Speculative Design Student Project
Project New Dawn
Note: I’ve chosen to anonymize this student because of the sensitive nature of this project.
This student’s Speculative Design project is one of the most disturbing and plausible narratives about the future of the US Military that I’ve ever seen.
As I say to my students each year in the Speculative Design (SD) assignment, as well as throughout my writing about Speculative Design in general, SD can be—and often is—deeply flawed and problematic. Its history is rife with eurocentrism and an erasure of folks in the “global south” who are suffering the fates on which designers in the “global north” are speculating. However, I do believe that SD as an intellectual exercise, especially at the late undergraduate level, has some redeeming qualities that make it worth teaching. I think that this student’s project is a good example of why.
This student began with a simple question on which they were interested in speculating (in part because of their own experience in the military): “what would happen if the US Military is unable to recruit people based on the volunteer system?” But, after I screened the brilliant film, Sleep Dealer, this student combined this question with another question that feels pressing to many—what will happen with the increasing number of migrants to the US, crossing, primarily, but not always, at the southern border? The intersection of these two questions became the core of this student’s Speculative Design project, which they titled “Project New Dawn.”
Inspired by projects like Superflux’s Dynamic Genetics vs. Mann, Walid Ra’ad’s Atlas Group, and the Guantanamo Bay Museum of Art and History, the student created a fictional archive of leaked government documents that tell the story of a covert project intended to incentivize immigrants to enlist in the US military while shielding the government from responsibility for the deaths of these not-yet citizen “volunteers.”
The project website—from which viewers enter this archive—states:
“2028: The U.S. government covertly launched the AMERICAN HERO PROGRAM (AHP), allegedly offering undocumented non-U.S. citizens a gateway to permanent residency through military enlistment. designed to address the escalating immigration crisis and the military’s chronic recruitment shortfalls. This controversial scheme has drawn widespread criticism and suspicion... On February 2, 2032, a bombshell revelation hit the public domain: documents were leaked unveiling a series of wire transfers from the U.S. Department of Defense to the shadowy private military firm, BLACKSTONE TACTICAL OPERATIONS. These transactions, totaling a staggering 1.2 million dollars over three years, hint at a deeper, more sinister agenda.”
The attention to detail in this fictional archive is astonishing. The student carefully studied the formatting and naming conventions of military documents, then produced, printed, altered, and scanned the fictional documents in order to create a disorienting sense of realism. Without the cue to viewers that this archive is, indeed, from the future, it would be nearly impossible to tell that this isn’t happening in the present. I’m not sure for how long the Project New Dawn website will remain live, but if you are able to visit this archive, please do.
Mimicking in many ways the history of the Bracero program, which served as another point of departure for this project, the Project New Dawn archive traces the journey of one Diego Morales, who, after being caught crossing the US-Mexico border illegally, enlists through the AHP to avoid the consequences of his migration. Diego ends up working for Blackstone and is killed in combat, but the record of his existence, much less his military service, is erased. Diego, the archive suggests, is part of a growing migrant military labor force that, like other forms of migrant labor, enables employers to circumnavigate employment rules and regulations.
Below: a screenshot of the interface to the archive.
This student’s Speculative Design project is one of the most disturbing and plausible narratives about the future of the US Military that I’ve ever seen.
As I say to my students each year in the Speculative Design (SD) assignment, as well as throughout my writing about Speculative Design in general, SD can be—and often is—deeply flawed and problematic. Its history is rife with eurocentrism and an erasure of folks in the “global south” who are suffering the fates on which designers in the “global north” are speculating. However, I do believe that SD as an intellectual exercise, especially at the late undergraduate level, has some redeeming qualities that make it worth teaching. I think that this student’s project is a good example of why.
This student began with a simple question on which they were interested in speculating (in part because of their own experience in the military): “what would happen if the US Military is unable to recruit people based on the volunteer system?” But, after I screened the brilliant film, Sleep Dealer, this student combined this question with another question that feels pressing to many—what will happen with the increasing number of migrants to the US, crossing, primarily, but not always, at the southern border? The intersection of these two questions became the core of this student’s Speculative Design project, which they titled “Project New Dawn.”
Inspired by projects like Superflux’s Dynamic Genetics vs. Mann, Walid Ra’ad’s Atlas Group, and the Guantanamo Bay Museum of Art and History, the student created a fictional archive of leaked government documents that tell the story of a covert project intended to incentivize immigrants to enlist in the US military while shielding the government from responsibility for the deaths of these not-yet citizen “volunteers.”
The project website—from which viewers enter this archive—states:
“2028: The U.S. government covertly launched the AMERICAN HERO PROGRAM (AHP), allegedly offering undocumented non-U.S. citizens a gateway to permanent residency through military enlistment. designed to address the escalating immigration crisis and the military’s chronic recruitment shortfalls. This controversial scheme has drawn widespread criticism and suspicion... On February 2, 2032, a bombshell revelation hit the public domain: documents were leaked unveiling a series of wire transfers from the U.S. Department of Defense to the shadowy private military firm, BLACKSTONE TACTICAL OPERATIONS. These transactions, totaling a staggering 1.2 million dollars over three years, hint at a deeper, more sinister agenda.”
The attention to detail in this fictional archive is astonishing. The student carefully studied the formatting and naming conventions of military documents, then produced, printed, altered, and scanned the fictional documents in order to create a disorienting sense of realism. Without the cue to viewers that this archive is, indeed, from the future, it would be nearly impossible to tell that this isn’t happening in the present. I’m not sure for how long the Project New Dawn website will remain live, but if you are able to visit this archive, please do.
Mimicking in many ways the history of the Bracero program, which served as another point of departure for this project, the Project New Dawn archive traces the journey of one Diego Morales, who, after being caught crossing the US-Mexico border illegally, enlists through the AHP to avoid the consequences of his migration. Diego ends up working for Blackstone and is killed in combat, but the record of his existence, much less his military service, is erased. Diego, the archive suggests, is part of a growing migrant military labor force that, like other forms of migrant labor, enables employers to circumnavigate employment rules and regulations.
Below: a screenshot of the interface to the archive.
Below: ads for the American Hero Program (AHP)
