CID Grand Hornu: Super Power Design

Can design turn us into superheroes?

Ever faster, stronger, more beautiful, more intelligent, the cult of individual performance has taken hold in a technological society where the body seems increasingly to be seen as an improvable tool. As a species, humans have always adapted to their environment, but the demands on their performance are increasingly sophisticated and rapidly changing.

In the contemporary technological and digital world, design is a tool for thinking and creating about improving our physical, intellectual and emotional capabilities. The application of design in fields such as sporting performance, prosthetics and healthcare are concrete manifestations of a desire to break biological boundaries using technology.

But this involvement raises a series of medical, ethical, social and philosophical questions. Indeed, such desire to go beyond one's biological limits is part of a cultural and social context and reflects a way of making society that it is important to question.

On the cover: Francesca Lanzavecchia and Hunn Wai, Metamorfosi Vegetali
© Davide Farabegoli

Source: Show On Show