Max Mollon: Interaction, Design, Research

PhD Candidate: EnsadLab, Telecom ParisTech, SACRe PSL
Supervision: Annie Gentes / Emmanuel Mahé / Remy Bourganel

Designer and researcher: I make strange fictional objects, shown to publics to engage discussions on innovation, technologies, ethics and society – it’s a kind of critical forecasting! My work takes place over a broad spectrum of outcomes, from newspapers to scientific journals, or as a conference workshop to an exhibition.

Imagine for a second… Designers make things user-friendly and seducing (from your last smartPhone to clothes or advert campaigns). But what is the designer’s role when his work support the consumption of artificial meat or meeting your lover by matching DNA?

My PhD research focuses, since late 2012, on how to use design products and scenarios, as tools for reflection and discussion. The design speculations I make, materialise forthcoming questions, in bringing forward desirable unknowns. They explore the value and impact of emerging practices, that happen at the interplay of science, technology and society. Debates are conducted among experts and sometimes, the general public.
Design Fiction and Speculative Design are part of the theoretical background I explore through the eye of human sciences, information & communication sciences and design research.
In particular, I explored topics as telepresence (the technologies that reshape the way we feel together despite distance) and predictive-health (DNA sequencing technologies transforming diagnostic in prognostic).

Formerly masters from HEAD–Geneva, Media Design program and currently PhD Candidate at SACRe PSL, EnsadLab/ Sociable Media, and Telecom ParisTech/ Codesign & Media Studies Lab. Some of my projects have been exhibited at the Milano furniture fair (2010, 2011), Lift Conference (2010, 2013) and Biennale Internationale du Design de St Etienne (2013). I worked with Incandescence, Orange Labs or Alcatel-Lucent Bell Labs. I also give lectures and occasionally teach design fiction (ENSAD Paris, Strate Paris, École de Condé Paris, Pôle supérieur du Design Villefontaine).

mollon [at] telecom-paristech.fr
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Publications

Find full bibliography here + Academia