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

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MINUK HWANG









Advances in technology have encouraged people to communicate on the Internet. It has become possible to communicate with people through text, voice, and video, and is now advancing communication by introducing AI technology as well as metaverse. Change in communication is like a doubleedged sword.

We would have been difficult without a video conferencing plaTorm like Zoom during the COVID period. In addition, the composition of new interactions is the diversification of media and the formation of new forms of human communication and interaction. Devices such as VR can help charities by drawing sympathy from people, and work efficiency can be increased through video conferencing media introduced with AI. The development of Internet communication makes us look forward to the future.

On the other hand, however, the development of advanced Internet communication can turn into an obstacle to face-to-face communication. Technology dependence will increase, and you will lose the communication skills you can get from face-to-face communication. In fact, studies have shown that generations exposed to the Internet find it difficult to grasp the context of communication. Perhaps the speed of development of Internet communication surely is a matter of concern. 

In 2060, advances in technology are overcoming limitations in online communication. To reduce the gap in communication that may occur in online communication, people have developed a computer vision technology that can recognize the other person’s feelings.

When people turn on the online meeting tool and go in, they can see beyond the other person’s lies by clicking a button on the bottom tab. It is easier to judge the context of what he says while recognizing the other person’s true heart. Technology solves the gap in communication that was cut off beyond the screen.

Link to prototype





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)