Very Very Far Away

This is a recording of a lecture for the Department of Design at Goldsmiths, University of London, presenting a design framework developed to explore the discursive practices of design within educational settings. Special thanks to Tim Miller for the invitation.

Abstract:

Imagine, if you will, a world where the narratives we tell ourselves are not truths etched in the firmament but fabrications—fragile, deliberate, and often cruel. Critical fables are a design practice that lays bare these fabrications, exposing the fragile and constructed nature of the realities we inhabit.

Critical fables use the crafted object, the tangible story, to unravel entrenched assumptions and challenge the arbitrary foundations of what we take for granted. They speak through materiality, insisting that the act of making is itself an act of rethinking. In each artefact lies not only a critique but a confrontation with power, with history, and with possibility.

What emerges is not escape but engagement: the slow, deliberate work of reshaping—not just the future, but the present, here and now. These fables do not seek to escape the world; they aim to reconfigure it, to reassemble its pieces into forms that hold hope, resistance, and possibility. And so, they ask us, the makers and the dreamers: what will you craft from the stories you have inherited?

In this episode—Alchemy of Ruins—we bring you into a moment of transformation: a live recording of a performance by first-year students of the MA Industrial Design course at Central Saint Martins, University of the Arts London.

For their first unit, the students responded to a text—a fictional fragment from another time and place, rich with peculiar detail.

From this fragment, they conjured life from its ruins. They designed and crafted objects and sounds that might hold meaning in this imagined world, weaving rituals that reconstruct time and space.

What you hear is not a narrative in the traditional sense, but the objects themselves speaking—mediators of their own stories. This is a fleeting glimpse into a place both unfamiliar and profound, reaching out to us from very, very far away.

This performance features narration by Andrew Friend and is a collaboration with Central Saint Martins’ MA Industrial Design programme. The performance took place on the 11th of December 2024 at the Studio Theatre in kings cross.

This is a story of parallels, inhabitation and belonging; a story about a place described through the memories of those who visited it, the nature of the places we directly inhabit, and the ones we fantasise.

A special, bilingual (French/English), episode commissioned by Diaspore for Manifesta 13, the Nomadic European Biennale of art and culture. This edition of the biennale is hosted by the southern French city of Marseille.

To help us in this we were joined by photographer and Marseille native Mona Grid, Former resident of the city, graphic designer Amelie Bonhomme, Artist and soon to be living in Marseille; Marie Jacotey, and frequent visitor in his role as designer in residence at Le Centre International de Recherche sur le Verre et les Arts plastiques (CIRVA) Jonah Takagi.

An audio essay that reflects on our conversations at the 70th International Astronautical Congress in Washington DC. In this episode, Joseph Popper and Sitraka Rakotoniaina explore what diversity can mean at the largest gathering of the space industry.

We speak to artists, designers, engineers and anthropologists who share their experiences of the congress and tell us about their different practices. From the conversations, we learn that outer space exploration demands multicultural and multidisciplinary approaches, in action and in attitude.

Thanks to our interviewees, Tamara Alvarez, Nelly Ben Hayoun, Sands Fish, Barbara Imhof, Prathima Muniyappa, Ufuoma Ovienmhada, Angelo Vermeulen and Chris Welch, for sharing their thoughts with us.

Normal Now, Act 3, As we get accustomed to the new normalities imposed upon us over the last 6 months we examine how we got to this point, and where things could escalate to. The bridges between what is and what might be real / true / fictitious are blurred in this, the final act of VVFA's Normal Now investigation.

Mixed and arranged by Matthew Motte

Andrew and Sitraka are joined by guests Malena Arcucci, Simone Rebaudengo, Nestor Pestana and Hugo Pilate, along with Michael and Chris Lewis to develop the co-enquiry expanding on themes of Automation and changing patterns of work. How are things evolving on our way out of lockdown, and how might we want things to shift once the lockdown is lifted?

Guests Malena Arcucci, Simone Rebaudengo, Nestor Pestana and Hugo Pilate join Andrew and Sitraka along with Michael and Chris Lewis to continue their exploration of a world in lockdown, Part 1 of a co-enquiry examining what could, and what we might like to change in a post covid society.

The first in a triptych of broadcasts exploring the world on lockdown, the implications of social isolation and the possible changes that could result from this strange new normality.

A conversation between Andrew Friend, Sitraka Rakotoniaina, Christopher Lewis and Michael Lewis.

Excerpt from VVFA's live broadcast "A More Familiar Unknown", for Late at Tate Britain: "From Tomorrow". An event curated by Tate Collective, on the 7th of february 2020. Participants were tasked with exploring the future of education and learning, and record their stories whilst using our soundscaping "engine", a nine people instrument.

Thumbnail photo by Dan Weill

In this episode, our narrator examines the ins and outs of the "Astrological Stock Exchange" (ASE), interviewing traders Michael Bradford and Magdalena Arriaga.