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Don't Panic

Part 2 Project 2007
Lucy Pengilley
Royal College of Art | UK
Paranoia is drawing us closer to a need for self-preservation as we live on a constant level of alert perpetually heightened by media panic buttons, however in the next 21 years are Londoners going to carry on relying on Prozac to get through a future of but what ifs…? ‘Don’t Panic’ speculates on a future where disaster scenarios are built into our homes, so necessary or irrational placebos can protect our apparent fragility. It questions our shifting values when we are faced with a fear absence and uncertainty whilst also forensically designing the possible home safety cards of our future.


In an entirely hand-drawn proposition, Lucy speculates on a future where we become increasingly paranoid about our survival. Lucy's investigation is centred on an area of Central London defined in The Serious Organised Crime Police Act 2005 (SOCPA), a major piece of legislation, which established an FBI-like agency to tackle serious organised crime. She begins to imagine designs for new and highly specific local communites who will inhabit this protest exclusion zone in the near future...It may not be a future we'd like, or even care to admit as citizens, but as designers we must accept it may be ours.

2007
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