Speculative Design | Master Project | Hochschule für Künste Bremen | Duration: Dec 2018 to May 2019 | Bremen, Germany

Whale of Humans

a speculative design project

The human species is unlike other species in being obsessed with futures. We like to predict and prepare for our futures. What is the numerical limit that these futures approach? Is it to the point that it can potentially affect our emotional and physical state? Concerns for our grandchildren and children or does it extend beyond that. As curiosity would have it, the limits of these futures extend beyond what affects us.

It so happens that our imagination and preparation for these futures depends on our inherent understanding of abstract concepts of reality, peace, economic and physical well being among others. Abstraction that find meaning from what is allowed by society. The futures that we predict are more often based on the easily satisfied consumers and users we are supposed to be rather than the complex and troubled people we inherently are.

This consumerist and ‘realistic’ approach works only for a privileged minority, designers often work within the constraints of a reality as it is, for the minority. For most people these realities do not work. It makes sense thus to increase the borders of reality and to shift the focus of this future from predicting towards speculating. To ask questions of ‘what if’, and to extend the question of ‘what if’ towards multiple realities that question the nature of what is ‘right’ and for ‘whom’. As an example; When we discuss saving humanity from global warming the narrative is controlled by those in power. Some countries stand to gain from global warming, Germany, a global producer of alternative energy and solar powered devices gains, Russia stands to gain lands and ports, while India can possibly be flooded from three sides.

When we focus on ‘predicting’ futures, we continue to do so keeping in mind the power structures that are currently in place. However when we asks questions of ‘what if’, we stand to open horizons that reveal these existing power structures and offer a chance to work towards changing the very structure of power. When we ask “What if humanity adapted itself to the changing nature instead of transforming the nature around itself” we offer a larger room for reality itself. When we ask this question we shed light on ethics in technology, genetic mutation and a political structure that would be required to make it happen. This project attempts to ask these ‘what if’ questions. It does so through paper sculptures that act as portals into a speculative world, a world where humans live in a dependent relationship with whales. The project touches upon parasitism, utopias and communication deep within the high seas.

Narrative

A whale of humans is a speculative design project that delves into a world where humans are: as the name suggests collectively housed in whales. It is a perfect world utopia or it’s nasty opposite, a dystopia, depending on your point of view: its habitants exhibit a perfect form of parasitism that is in line with the ecosystem, free from the temptations of capitalism but also devoid of the individualism that liberalism promises us in our current world. Utopia is said to mean ‘no place’, from the Greek word ‘O Topia’; but others derive it from ‘eu’, as in ‘eugenics’, in which case it would mean ‘healthy place’ or ‘good place’. The project attempts to keep a neutral stance, inviting viewers to be stimulated by the narrative, but to decide for themselves if it is a a ‘good place’, ‘no place’ or something else. It finds it’s satirical aspect in the extent to which humans would go to survive, traversing not only the distances in space, setting up civilizations on moon, but also going deeper within the Earth’s waters. After all not everyone can get a seat to moon.

The diegetic universe

The present form of life definitely consequents this world’s existence, but it is not a prediction, rather an alternative world that flips around and takes our current form of existence to another extreme. Parasitism being that form of existence. Humans have been living off of the resources that other organisms produce from processes that took millions of years of evolution. Whether it is the silk harnessed from a silkworm or the blue blood from horseshoe crabs used for vaccinations. What separates us from other naturally evolved parasitic relationships is that ours has been rather too quick, our collectivism being the tool that exploits rather than a mechanism evolved form years of evolution. In the end this speed has depraved us the knowledge required to keep the ecosystem stable. Thus we have failed to keep our host—Earth— healthy. This world centers around this very idea of parasitism, that is: well, good. In this post-apocalyptic world, humans live in a form of coexistence with whales. They utilize the resources that whales consume in a manner that allows the whale to be healthy, food water and air. In addition, the biological machinery of a whale swimming in the depths of the water allows them to harness energy and tap into it’s sonar technology as a form of communication. This form of ecosystem friendly parasitism is observed in other aspects of human survival as well.

Parasitism

Living in a habitat on top of a moving living organism— under water no less— has it’s own set of problems which means that the parasitism that humans exhibit would compromise or indeed change the way of life as they know it. When biologists study parasites it isn’t possible for them to lodge them on a petri dish, for instance in case of Plasmodium you have to get the male and female macrogamonts to believe that they are living in the gut of a mosquito and once they have bred, their offspring believe that they’ve been spit out by a mosquito into human blood. Humans can’t be simply thrown into ships hinged on whales. Humans therefore go through a somewhat retrograde form of evolution. To survive, they must sacrifice the sense of individualism that they exercised, and work together as a community to survive. Ideas of family, entertainment, gender, all go through a change in this world.

There are androids that collect crustaceans and phytoplankton passing through the baleen lined mouth of the whales. While water and air are absorbed through the filtration sites inside the whale’s body. The body of a whale is an ecosystem in its own right, therefore even wastes produced by a whale can often find use in the human settlement. Furthermore chemical hormonal manipulators are used to alter the body chemistry of the whale. Influencing feeding patterns, pseudo pregnancy (thus altering the region a whale travels to) among others. The lifespan of the people is also interconnected with that of a whale. To keep the system afloat humans hosted by a whale, die with the death of the whale. As they do, they are allowed a small glimpse of life as was on land, using a drug famously called soma. Checking over population. The life of a whale is already extended due to the protective defenses humans set from internal diseases as well as external predators. Following the same thought process, human birth cycles are timed with that of whales swimming about.

Communication

Whale song has been discovered as a very complex form of communication whose purpose goes beyond mating and food needs. This song is heard as far as 160kms away, the song is used by this society perhaps to communicate simple messages like sea routes as well as complex messages that indicate the emotional well being of the caravan and it’s organism. It is a somewhat solitary life lived by these people. They have opportunities to exchange stories of their travel and their own ideologies at resource exchange centers where are also housed the logs of all passengers ever to have been housed by a whale. The resource centres, spread across waters around the equator allow for the society to stay ‘afloat’. Here water, food, air and chemical enhancers are exchanged, you offer what you have in excess in exchange for the resources you need.

Family

A whale can house 5-6 people, and these people will spend a large part of their lives with each other, therefore it begs the question what
kind of mental and age profiles would these people have and what kind of interactions. It would be necessary to alternate roles much like the life-cycle of a parasite to facilitate psychological and sociological stability, therefore typical familiar roles will not suffice. Gender morphism might also come into play or perhaps the very concept of gender is absent. Procreation, exists for the sake of keeping the race alive and not to chase the dream of a family. Children are reared by the community, even as the role of parents continues to survive. Gender and sex is often at the heart of alternative worlds created in science fiction genres, whether it is The left hand of Darkness by Ursula Le Guinn or A Brave New World by Huxley. Therefore the obsession of a soul- mate might almost sound ludicrous owing to it’s stark omnipresence. Owing to the maintenance of ecosystem, human births are synchronized with the birth cycles of whales or much like many parasites lodged inside plants and animals, genitals (owing to their demand for energy and nutrition) may evolve on a need basis. Cultural epithets from the old world may not find place in the world and forms of entertainment will be more individualistic than collective. One could compare this existence to that of astronauts living together in space, having to spend so much time together for the sake of existence that entertainment may best be managed alone.

Hope for the world gone by

Even as the whale world has moved on, setting up an unorthodox society, the hope remains for land to be habitable again. Sects within the society keep attempts to make land above water and air more habitable, collecting samples and continued attempts to keep the story of the world alive