In the latest edition of the Fantasiemuskel podcast, designer and professor of product design at the Karlsruhe University of Arts and Design, Dr. Füsun Türetken, explains why designing the future begins with controversy and results in the most polyphonic possible design.

Füsun Türetken studied architecture, urban studies and visual culture in Germany, the USA and England. She is co-founder of the STRÜKTÜR platform and currently a professor at two universities in the field of art and design: at the Karlsruhe University of Arts and Design and at the Bremen University of the Arts, where she holds the chair of “Design and the Future”. In the latest edition of “Fantasiemuskel”, the Monopol podcast about art, business and social transformation, the two podcasters Friedrich von Borries and Torsten Fremer wanted to find out whether we can really shape the future or whether the future shapes us.

The answer, as you can easily imagine, is not easy. After all, there are many challenges that we have to deal with, and even if Türetken makes it clear that she has no “recipe” for how to shape the future, it is clear to her that, above all, we have to argue. We need to question the conventions and basic assumptions: one of her examples is that we need to ask ourselves what impact AI and bots have on democracy. How racism and climate change are connected.

And so her practice is less about developing proposed solutions and more about searching, researching and reflecting together in writing and teaching.

Encounters and cooperation

An important principle for her is encounters and cooperation with others, because for her the future is polyphonic, many-voiced - the opposite of the authorial and heroic self-image that many designers still practice today.

Since Füsun Türetken understands design as something multi-layered and polyphonic, it is not surprising that polyphony also plays a role in her fantasy muscle. This is because Füsun Türetken imagines that her fantasy muscle has to do with the voice, both storytelling and singing, which she knows as an integral part of the culture of her Istanbul family. How this sounds is left to the listener's imagination.

Link to Monopol-Artikel and Podcast: https://www.monopol-magazin.de/fantasiemuskel-polyphones-design-mit-fuesun-tueretken