
Speculative Design Projects


Octopus on roller skates (You, Li and Ma, 2024)
Single channel film. 4K. Colour. Stereo sound. Duration: 3:13 min.
Starring
Tianqi Li (Octopus)
Xiaoyang Ma (Shark)
Filming and Editing
Dagyeong You

























This project stimulates speculative thinking about a Post-Norm Society. In particular, the designer envisions a Post-Individualism society as a non-linear, wave-like transformation, challenging the notion that collectivism is the sole solution to the issues faced by individualist societies. Instead, this project proposes a more layered and fluid model that explores alternative futures beyond a simple shift between individualism and collectivism. First, at a macro level, the project establishes a wave-like system that oscillates between individualism and collectivism. Based on this framework, it sets a future scenario in the artist's home region of East Asia, imagining life in a Hyper-Anarchic Individualism era. Drawing upon the region’s geographical features, the scenario depicts a world where rising sea levels and climate change have forced over 30% of human life to take place underwater. In this future, with governments and mass markets having disappeared, individuals must hunt for their own survival. As part of the persona design process, the project explores adaptive survival strategies, focusing particularly on custom garments inspired by marine life to facilitate underwater living.



