Abstract
This paper investigates how the Danish art collective SUPERFLEX make use of actual or mediated hypnotic situations in five key artworks: Experience Climate Change as an Animal (2009), The Financial Crisis (Session I-IV) (2009), Hotline til udkanten (“Hotline for the Peripheries” (2010), The Working Life (2013), and Inter species Café (2021). Drawing on concepts from speculative design, psychoanalytic theory, and affect studies, the paper argues that SUPERFLEX uses hypnosis not only as a therapeutic tool but also as a speculative strategy. Through sound, narrative, and immersive experience, SUPERFLEX induces altered states of perception that de-center normative thinking and open imaginative space for social and ecological reflection. The paper contributes to speculative design research by suggesting the hypnotic aesthetics of induction as a conceptual and methodological extension of speculative practice, one that introduces "embodied criticality"—an approach where speculative engagement is enacted through somatic, affective, and experiential means.
Keywords
Speculative design; Design futuring; Hypnosis; Aesthetics; SUPERFLEX
DOI
https://doi.org/10.21606/iasdr.2025.1211
Citation
Johansson, T.D.(2025) Hypnotic Futuring: SUPERFLEX and the Aesthetic of Induction in Speculative Design Research, in Chang, C.-Y., and Hsu, Y. (eds.), IASDR 2025: Design Next, 02-05 December, Taiwan. https://doi.org/10.21606/iasdr.2025.1211
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License
Conference Track
Track 2 - Design Futuring
Hypnotic Futuring: SUPERFLEX and the Aesthetic of Induction in Speculative Design Research
This paper investigates how the Danish art collective SUPERFLEX make use of actual or mediated hypnotic situations in five key artworks: Experience Climate Change as an Animal (2009), The Financial Crisis (Session I-IV) (2009), Hotline til udkanten (“Hotline for the Peripheries” (2010), The Working Life (2013), and Inter species Café (2021). Drawing on concepts from speculative design, psychoanalytic theory, and affect studies, the paper argues that SUPERFLEX uses hypnosis not only as a therapeutic tool but also as a speculative strategy. Through sound, narrative, and immersive experience, SUPERFLEX induces altered states of perception that de-center normative thinking and open imaginative space for social and ecological reflection. The paper contributes to speculative design research by suggesting the hypnotic aesthetics of induction as a conceptual and methodological extension of speculative practice, one that introduces "embodied criticality"—an approach where speculative engagement is enacted through somatic, affective, and experiential means.