Sensing energy: Forming stories through speculative design artefacts

The artificial world is part of an on-going negotiation of meaning, manifesting in social practice. From a sustainability perspective it is thus important to critically examine what norms are imprinted into the artificial, as well as to imagine, materialize and suggest artefacts that could afford more sustainable stories and practices to form. The project Sensing Energy is an attempt to explore how design could contribute to a re-imagination of everyday life and society, as well as what imaginaries (artefacts and related stories) could come out of such an endeavour. A critical and speculative design programme comprising the three leitmotifs Natureculture, Micro-sizing modernity, and Focal things and practices, provided a frame and foundation for a series of design experiments. The resulting artefacts were presented at two different workshops in which participants were asked to form stories that integrated one or more of the design experiments into their everyday life. Based on the material from the workshops we can conclude that the design experiments worked well as parts of or catalysts for new stories of the everyday.