Speculative Stuff
2023 - 2024 - 2025 - 2026 Student Works
* The intellectual property rights of each work are owned by each student.

Senior Sentencing




IRIS LEE


 On January 12, 2023, Dr. David Sinclair and his colleagues successfully manipulated the aging process in mice. By introducing breaks in the DNA to mimic aging on the epigenome, they accelerated the mice’s physical aging, and were also able to reverse the process by rebooting the mice’s cells with backup copies of the epigenetic instructions, eliminating the corrupted signals that caused aging. The mice regained their youthful characteristics, with their clocks reversing by approximately 57%. From the realization that aging is not solely dependent on DNA mutations but rather on misguided epigenetic instructions, the researchers were led to connect the activation of reprogramming genes to a drug called doxycycline, allowing them to control the aging and deaging process through drug administration. Although the study used mice, the study reveals that the manipulation of aging in humans is not such a far-fetched idea, but instead, one that exists in our future timeline.

However, regardless of technological feasibility, should we choose to deage ourselves when the opportunity arises? On one hand, aging is a natural part of life that should be accepted rather than feared. Yet, with the possibility of age manipulation, the need for acceptance may become less relevant. On the other hand, it is often believed that reversing aging would diminish quality of life and hinder personal and societal growth. Still, a shorter lifespan does not necessarily equate to less suffering, as we have the ability to alleviate our own suffering in our daily lives. Perhaps the pursuit of age manipulation should be seen as a desire to enhance life by valuing the extension of the time we are healthy and able.

Even so, if an immediate benefit to a technology is presented, regardless of ethical implications or societal ramifications, wide-spread societal acceptance doesn’t take long. Therefore, it’s not unlikely that in the not so distant future, the government will incorporate age-manipulation into its criminal justice system in pursuit of the economic benefits from the elimination of prisons. Criminals would face a sentence of rapid aging, being physically disadvantaged compared to the rest of society. Despite the logical economic benefits to utilizing age manipulation in the criminal justice system, we must consider if it is worth the detrimental social impact on minority groups that already exist, and would be perpetuated by such implementation.





2023



Speculative Stuff



Speculative Stuff is a public archive of speculative design works developed through Yonsei University’s Integrated Design courses, 
led by Hyunjae Daniel Shin (Associate Professor) and Eun Sun Park (Lecturer).

The platform documents how undergraduate students begin with small everyday questions — discomforts, contradictions, awkward moments, and social habits we often overlook — and transform them into speculative objects, future scenarios, and critical narratives.

These works are not predictions of the future. They are invitations to look again at the present. By using comedy, exaggeration, absurdity, and preposterous worldbuilding, the projects make familiar systems feel strange and open up alternative ways of imagining technology, culture, society, and the environment.

The course has been shaped by an ongoing pedagogical exploration of Speculative Critical Design, combining futures studies, design research, interactive workshops, and public engagement. It encourages students to move beyond solution-driven design and develop more critical, imaginative, and participatory ways of engaging with alternative futures.

The methodological background of Speculative Stuff is further informed by Eun Sun Park’s doctoral research on the Preposterous Comedy Approach for Speculative Critical Design, which examines how comedy techniques, preposterous futures, and speculative artefacts can support critical thinking, public engagement, and future-oriented design education.

Read the dissertation HERE(EN) (KR)