We Think About Our Century, We Wonder What to Do With Our Evening.
Academic Project
Faculdade de Belas-Artes
Industry
Post-Truth
Fiction
Disciplines
Editorial Design
FBAUL Team
Gonçalo Marques
Madalena Gameiro
Margarida Melo
Rita Carreira
Sofia Paz
Tomás Santos
Victória Gazineu
Prof. António Nicolas
Prof. Sofia Gonçalves
On the Threshold of Time
On one side, a century. On the other, an approaching evening. It is precisely in these two paradoxical times that Régis Debray positions us as individuals who, when thinking retrospectively about their time, immediately place themselves beyond their time (the present, the here and now), the singular moment in which history and everyday life seem to cohabit. In the text “Socialism: a Life-Cycle,” the last sentence of which gives the title to this Communication Design Finalist Student Exhibition, Debray identifies three stages in the history of communication and ideas: the logosphere, where the word reigns (from the invention of writing to the advent of the press); the graphosphere (from 1448 to around 1968), where the press gains authoritative status; and the videosphere, the realm of the screen and the image. This history is both linear and synchronous: we are simultaneously word, press, screen; subject, citizen, consumer. We listen to the world and say: “God told me,” “I read it,” “I saw it on television” (or if we want to update this maxim, “I saw it on the Internet”).
Fiction as a Critical Mirror
This explosive mixture of belief, information/knowledge, and emotion/access is what defines the subjectivity of truth, the polarization of discourses, and what we call post-truth. If facts, truth(s), and reality(ies) are compromised, it seems logical that fiction, in counter-current, gains relevance. Tired of alternative facts, we prefer the honesty that fiction offers, freed from the absolute dominance of truth and lies. Fiction can then be that unusual and paradoxical place where Debray put us: with it, we think about our time and imagine what it can be, and we admit that from the particular—the mundane—we can reach the collective—the worldview.
Rethinking the Present through Design
Today, design leverages fiction as a strategic tool, starting from the familiar and moving toward the possible to reshape reality. These fictions, grounded in reality, critique society and create a reality effect or reality-check. In the 2020/21 academic year, we focused not on imagining the future but rethinking the present, exploring how design can serve as a tool for inclusive realities and amplify marginalized perspectives. Through projects that interrogate collective memory, we question the dominant narratives and explore how design can create powerful fictions that challenge and reshape our understanding of reality.
We Think About Our Century, We Wonder What to Do With Our Evening.
Academic Project
Faculdade de Belas-Artes
Industry
Post-Truth
Fiction
Disciplines
Editorial Design
FBAUL Team
Gonçalo Marques
Madalena Gameiro
Margarida Melo
Rita Carreira
Sofia Paz
Tomás Santos
Victória Gazineu
Prof. António Nicolas
Prof. Sofia Gonçalves
On the Threshold of Time
On one side, a century. On the other, an approaching evening. It is precisely in these two paradoxical times that Régis Debray positions us as individuals who, when thinking retrospectively about their time, immediately place themselves beyond their time (the present, the here and now), the singular moment in which history and everyday life seem to cohabit. In the text “Socialism: a Life-Cycle,” the last sentence of which gives the title to this Communication Design Finalist Student Exhibition, Debray identifies three stages in the history of communication and ideas: the logosphere, where the word reigns (from the invention of writing to the advent of the press); the graphosphere (from 1448 to around 1968), where the press gains authoritative status; and the videosphere, the realm of the screen and the image. This history is both linear and synchronous: we are simultaneously word, press, screen; subject, citizen, consumer. We listen to the world and say: “God told me,” “I read it,” “I saw it on television” (or if we want to update this maxim, “I saw it on the Internet”).
Fiction as a Critical Mirror
This explosive mixture of belief, information/knowledge, and emotion/access is what defines the subjectivity of truth, the polarization of discourses, and what we call post-truth. If facts, truth(s), and reality(ies) are compromised, it seems logical that fiction, in counter-current, gains relevance. Tired of alternative facts, we prefer the honesty that fiction offers, freed from the absolute dominance of truth and lies. Fiction can then be that unusual and paradoxical place where Debray put us: with it, we think about our time and imagine what it can be, and we admit that from the particular—the mundane—we can reach the collective—the worldview.
Rethinking the Present through Design
Today, design leverages fiction as a strategic tool, starting from the familiar and moving toward the possible to reshape reality. These fictions, grounded in reality, critique society and create a reality effect or reality-check. In the 2020/21 academic year, we focused not on imagining the future but rethinking the present, exploring how design can serve as a tool for inclusive realities and amplify marginalized perspectives. Through projects that interrogate collective memory, we question the dominant narratives and explore how design can create powerful fictions that challenge and reshape our understanding of reality.