Disappearing Bodies, Disappearing Objects: What Years and Years Can Teach Us About Design

Abstract

British television has recently acquired a reputation for producing challenging dystopian visions of the future. While Black Mirror casts a disenchanted look on our experiences, Years and Years lacks cynicism and, in that regard, holds interesting lessons for designers. While the issues commented on by the British fictional series are also global in scale and scope (nuclear bombing, political tensions in the EU, energy crisis), the series displays a rare creativity in its depiction of future objects and innovations. The inventions depicted can be truly groundbreaking, long awaited or dysfunctional. While the series examines these objects and dispositifs, it never leans towards a set position, be it discouraged Luddism or happy-go-lucky celebration. Because it refuses to embrace or reject technology, it gives space to a rich examination of the possible design products of the future. This essay examines three selected objects (a meal tray, a vocal AI and a drone) which potentially condense a great deal of the current criticism of technology. None of the analysed objects are incredible in form or function; in fact, they have all been the subject of previous fiction matter. These objects will be analysed in terms of dispositifs and usage, but also as temporal devices whose functionality and aesthetics change with or against the tide. The concept of disappearance will be key as all three objects purport to replace jobs and the workers who hold such positions. These technological products all enact an erasure of work and of the working-class body, if they are understood as potential products available in a near future. As narrative devices, however, they also function as potent critical agents, underlying potential modes of resistance in our present.