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| future_fabulators:antipodean_musings [2014-03-05 08:02] – nik | future_fabulators:antipodean_musings [2014-03-07 01:07] – nik |
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| by Maja Kuzmanovic & Nik Gaffney. Glenelg, Australia. 020140210 - 02140305 | by Maja Kuzmanovic & Nik Gaffney. Glenelg, Australia. 020140210 - 02140305 |
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| A few years ago, we started to design 'seasonal programming’ for FoAM in Brussels. During winter we would focus on research, in the spring design and productions, dedicate summer to outward oriented activities (e.g. workshops and public events) and in the autumn retreat into documentation and reflection. While we feel the theory is sound, it has been difficult to implement in practice, as embedded as we are in a world that is always 'on', regardless of the weather, temperature or diurnal-cycles. In following thses seasonal rhythms, the northern hemisphere winter suggests our time is primarily focused on research. | Three weeks ago, we began our research retreat in Adelaide, Australia (in line with the 'seasonal programming’ for FoAM in Brussels, despite the summer here) with the aim of better understanding the techniques, tools and theories around 'future studies' and looking further afield to find tehcniques applicable to our current work. This delineated focus was deemed necessary since it is rare for us to be able to spend time in more or less uninterrupted reading, following interesting leads down often fractal rabbit holes. We attempted to answer questions that had arisen from the last few years of practice with scenarios and in particular prehearsals. |
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| <html><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/zzkt/11645684936/" title="20131227 by zzkt, on Flickr"><img src="https://farm6.staticflickr.com/5490/11645684936_0f9fa6d78d_c.jpg" width="800" height="492" alt="20131227"></a></html> | {{>http://www.flickr.com/photos/foam/12979291555/}} |
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| Three weeks ago, we began our research retreat in Adelaide, Australia (despite the summer here) with the aim of better understanding the techniques, tools and theories of 'future studies' and if they could be applied in our work. This delineated focus was deemed necessary since it is rare for us to be able to spend weeks in more or less uninterrupted reading, following interesting leads down often fractal rabbit holes. We attempted to answer questions that had arisen from the last few years of practice with scenarios and in particular prehearsals. | |
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| Since we began working with what we call 'speculative culture' (~2009), we have crossed paths with people like Bruce Sterling, Anab Jain, Chris Luebkeman, Scott Smith, Justin Pickard, Maya van Leemput, Stuart Candy (amongst others) who are more directly involved with futures, future studies or may even call themselves futurists. We have seen many points of contact (and departure) with their work, but without dedicated time to research the field in earnest we often felt like dabbling amateurs or isolated adventures. We have most likely been spinning the reinventing wheels and solving well understood problems. These few weeks have been very precious to us: we have begun to place our practice in a wider context, understand where we can stand on others' shoulders, and where we consciously or unconsciously stumbled on possible solutions or new avenues of exploration. It has helped us to more or less answer the questions of why we working more explicitly with futures, as well as beginning to glimpse answers to a few other dilemmas, including: | Since we began working with what we now call 'speculative culture' (~2009), we have crossed paths with people like Bruce Sterling, Anab Jain, Chris Luebkeman, Scott Smith, Justin Pickard, Maya van Leemput, Stuart Candy (amongst others) who are more directly involved with futures, future studies or may even call themselves futurists. We have seen many points of contact (and departure) with their work, but without dedicated time to research the field in earnest we often felt like dabbling amateurs or isolated adventures, most likely been spinning the reinventing wheels and solving well understood problems. So, these few weeks have been very precious to us: we have begun to place our practice in a wider context, understand where we can stand on others' shoulders, and where we consciously or unconsciously stumbled on possible solutions or new avenues of exploration. It has helped us to more or less answer the questions of why we working more explicitly with futures, as well as beginning to glimpse answers to a few other dilemmas, including: |
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| * how do we increase a sense of agency when faced with unknowable volatile futures? | * how do we increase a sense of agency when faced with unknowable volatile futures? |
| * who are our historical and contemporary peers? | * who are our historical and contemporary peers? |
| * etc. | * etc. |
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| <html><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/zzkt/12287400455/" title="20140201 by zzkt, on Flickr"><img src="https://farm4.staticflickr.com/3784/12287400455_efff2019e5_c.jpg" width="800" height="548" alt="20140201"></a></html> | |
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| === Our path towards futures === | {{>http://www.flickr.com/photos/zzkt/12287400455/}} |
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| Our decision to work with futures so far has been heavily based on practice and intuition. We were frustrated with shorttermism and thinking in silos that lead to various contemporary crises. We agreed with many activists and thinkers that the biggest crisis today is a cultural one. We realised how much transdisciplinary co-creation helps opening up new possibilities. We wondered how to increase cultural resilience in the face of turbulence and investigated how we could prepare for whatever the future might throw our way. Were curious about behavioural and visionary adaptation and found that experiencing environmental and social effects is much more profound than preaching, showing or talking about them them. Guided by our motto "grow your own worlds", our many paths - from mixed reality, to experience design, ecological and technological arts, process facilitation and cultural resilience - all seem to converge on "speculative culture" or "culture of foresight": creating a context in which we can collaboratively create diverse images of the future as embodied experiences today. | ==== Our path towards futures ==== |
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| Our futures practice has a peculiar history: it evolved from a range of parallel and disparate threads of our work, some dealing with (direct) experience, others with creating our preferred futures as artistic experiments and others again with preparing for and living in environmental, social and economic turbulences today and in the times ahead. In retrospect, we were always circling around the edges of the futures field, but have never explicitly researched it. To begin with, we were creating immersive, responsive environments where people could experience the effects of their actions 'on a human scale' (t* series). At the same time we worked on speculative human-plant-interactions in groWorld, as an alternative to industrial monocultures and patenting of life. Over time this work grew into an alternate reality narrative called Borrowed Scenery where we immersed our guests in a parallel reality where plants are a central aspects of human society. In another thread, we designed and hosted transdisciplinary Luminous Green workshops to address systemic environmental and cultural challenges through participation and co-creation. And finally, the closest we came to futures studies was during Resilients, where we our field of investigation was 'future preparedness', hypothesising that we could increase personal and collective resilience by rehearsing a range of possible futures. | Our decision to work with futures so far has been heavily based on practice and intuition. We were frustrated with short-termism and 'thinking in silos' that has contributed to various contemporary crises. We agree with many those who see that the crisis-beneath-the-crisis is a cultural one. We saw first hand how significantly transdisciplinary co-creation help open up new possibilities. We wondered how we could increase cultural resilience in the face of turbulent unknowns and investigated how we could prepare for whatever the future might throw our way while not having to rely on predictions about what that may be. Were curious about behavioural change and visionary adaptation and found that experiencing environmental and social effects is often much more profound than preaching, showing or talking about them them. Guided by our motto "grow your own worlds", our many paths - from mixed reality, to experience design, ecological and technological arts, process facilitation and cultural resilience - all seemed to converge on "speculative culture" or a "culture of foresight" creating a context in which we can collaboratively create diverse images of the future as embodied experiences today. |
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| Our romance with the futures has always been entangled with storytelling, but also more eclectic practices as meditation, divination and invocation (that most futurists are careful to stay very clear of nowadays). Not having a professional futurists’ background, we have not shied away from these fields - we see them as different aspects of knowing-, relating to- and having agency in the world. So, with this weird collection of conceptual and practical baggage, in the beginning of February 2014 we embarked on a journey through the unwieldy terrain of the futures studies. We had less than a month to do something that could take several PhDs (I guess we have never outgrown Alice’s plans for doing six impossible things before breakfast). Luckily, we had two very useful filters: a set of practice-based questions that we collected from various debriefs from future preparedness workshops and a more or less defined direction for the Future Fabulators pre-enactments we’re planning to design in the coming months. Whatever we researched had to be furthering our practice, in one way or another. | Our futures practice has a peculiar history: it evolved from a range of parallel and disparate threads in our work, some dealing with (direct) experience, others with creating our preferred futures as artistic experiments and yet others with preparing for and living in conditions of environmental, social and economic turbulence. In retrospect, we were always circling around the edges of the 'futures field', but had never explicitly researched it. To begin with, we were creating immersive, responsive environments where people could experience the effects of their actions 'on a human scale' (t* series). At the same time we worked on speculative human-plant-interactions in groWorld, as an alternative to industrial monocultures and patenting of life. Over time this work grew into an alternate reality narrative called Borrowed Scenery where we immersed our guests in a parallel reality where plants became a central aspects of human society. In another thread, we designed and hosted the transdisciplinary Luminous Green workshops to address systemic environmental and cultural challenges through participation and co-creation. And finally, the closest we came to futures studies was during Resilients, where we our field of investigation was 'future preparedness', hypothesising that we could increase personal and collective resilience by rehearsing a range of possible futures. |
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| <html><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/zzkt/9367569207/" title="20130725 by zzkt, on Flickr"><img src="https://farm8.staticflickr.com/7407/9367569207_287ceb9eff_c.jpg" width="800" height="532" alt="20130725"></a></html> | Our romance with the futures has always been entangled with storytelling, but also more eclectic practices including meditation, divination and invocation (which most futurists are careful to stay very clear of nowadays). Not being professional futurists, we haven't shied away from these fields - we see them as different aspects of knowing-, relating to- and having agency in the world. So, with this weird collection of conceptual and practical baggage, in the beginning of February 2014 we embarked on a journey through the unwieldy terrain of the field which calls itself "futures studies". We had less than a month to do something that could easily have taken several PhDs (I guess we have never outgrown Alice’s plans for doing six impossible things before breakfast). Luckily, we had two very useful filters: a set of practice-based questions that we collected from various debriefs from future preparedness workshops and a more or less defined direction for the Future Fabulators pre-enactments we’re planning to design in the coming months. Whatever we researched had to be furthering our practice, in one way or another. |
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| | {{>http://www.flickr.com/photos/zzkt/9367569207/}} |
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| === But why…? === | ==== But why…? ==== |
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| We began by interviewing each other using the "5 whys" technique. From this conversation it became clear that we’re interested in examining the futures tools and techniques that can help us adapt to uncertainty (in its many guises). We believe that a culture where foresight is embedded in daily life would be more adept to living in a world of probabilities without anxiety, away from rigidly linear 'cause and effect'. Being able to envision alternative futures in the present could allow us to embrace uncertainty more easily. It could also open up new possibilities that would shake up the currently unacceptable status quo and attempt to steer it towards a future where holistic, inclusive and anti-fragile values prevail. We want to investigate experiential futurism as a way to (re)connect future visions with realities, where humans aren’t separate from planetary "others". Our conjecture is that by experiencing what it would be like to be ourselves in a range of future scenarios we could observe our present situation more clearly, adapt to the world as it evolves and experience the agency to navigate our present in the direction of more preferred futures. | We began by interviewing each other using the "5 whys" technique. From this conversation it became clear that we’re interested in examining the futures tools and techniques that can help us adapt to uncertainty (in its many guises). We believe that a culture where foresight is embedded in daily life would be more adept to living in a world of probabilities without anxiety, away from rigidly linear 'cause and effect'. Being able to envision alternative futures in the present could allow us to embrace uncertainty more easily. It could also open up new possibilities that would shake up the currently unacceptable status quo and attempt to steer it towards a future where holistic, inclusive and anti-fragile values prevail. We want to investigate experiential futurism as a way to (re)connect future visions with realities, where humans aren’t separate from planetary "others". Our conjecture is that by experiencing what it would be like to be ourselves in a range of future scenarios we could observe our present situation more clearly, adapt to the world as it evolves and experience the agency to navigate our present in the direction of more preferred futures. |
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| <html><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/zzkt/10743442776/" title="20131107 by zzkt, on Flickr"><img src="https://farm6.staticflickr.com/5543/10743442776_45e5442b63_c.jpg" width="800" height="513" alt="20131107"></a></html> | {{>http://www.flickr.com/photos/zzkt/10743442776/}} |
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| Futures studies | |
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| From this rather idealistic and ambitious starting point, we delved into the literature of future studies, hoping to generate a mental map of the field. This lead us down labyrinths of military strategy departments and corporate think tanks, with pathways through dusty academic paper factories and glitzy design [[:/forecasting]] blogs leading us towards [[the future of futures]] and [[non predictive strategy]]. We learned buckets of jargon and found out that futures studies has many faces and inconsistencies, as well as an interesting histories and promising futures. From what we could grasp from skimming through papers and websites, the field seems somewhat fragmented and insular, comprised of various cliques and schools of thought and action. There are the Europeans (in France, Netherlands, Germany, UK…) and the Americans (such as the RAND think tank or the Global Business Network), with quite formalised methods designed for policy and strategic planning originating in the (cold) war era of the 40s and 50s and more recently looking at digitally enhanced [[crowdsourced futures]]; there is the Pacific strand with the Manoa School in Hawaii and several Australian futurists enclaves, proposing methods that are perhaps more culturally and philosophically closer to what we’re interested in (such as causal layered analysis, or [[integral futures]]) and finally there are interesting futurists from Mexico, India, the middle east and parts of the Global South, with interesting views on de-colonising futures. | |
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| {{:future_fabulators:screen_shot_2014-02-27_at_16.25.13.png?direct|}} | ====Studying Futures==== |
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| === Scenario thinking === | From this rather idealistic and ambitious starting point, we delved into the literature of future studies, hoping to generate more coherent mental maps of the field. This has lead us down labyrinths of military strategy and around corporate think tanks, with pathways through dusty academic paper factories and glitzy design [[:/forecasting]] blogs leading us towards [[the future of futures]] and [[non predictive strategy]]. We learned buckets of jargon and came to see that futures studies has many faces and inconsistencies, as well as interesting histories and promising futures. From what we could grasp from skimming through papers and websites, the field seems somewhat fragmented and insular, comprised of various cliques, schools of thought and modes of action (which in fairness, is true of many academic disciplines with one foot in the practice-based). There are some obvious geographic and lingusitic differences; the Europeans (in France, Netherlands, Germany, UK…) and the Americans (such as RAND or the Global Business Network), some with quite formalised methods designed for policy and strategic planning originating in the (cold) war era of the 40s and 50s and more recently looking at digitally enhanced [[crowdsourced futures]]; there is the Pacific strand with the Manoa School in Hawaii and several Australian futurists enclaves, proposing methods that are perhaps more culturally and philosophically closer to what we’re interested in (such as causal layered analysis, or [[integral futures]]) and finally there are interesting futurists from Mexico, India, the middle east and parts of the Global South, with interesting views on de-colonising futures. |
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| | {{:future_fabulators/screen_shot_2014-03-05_at_21.24.00.png}} |
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| The first week of our research got bogged down in methodology, as a lot of our practice-based questions started with "how to do (this or that)", as they originated from debriefs of our [[scenarios|scenario]] workshops. We planned to look at methods for scenarios and prehearsals, but due to time constraints as well as the vast amount of literature most of our time was spent on [[scenario building]] and [[scenario methods|its methods]]. For our scenario workshops in Resilients and Future Fabulators, we primarily worked with the [[http://lib.fo.am/future_fabulators/scenario_methods#x2_double_uncertainty|double uncertainty]] method, and were curious to find out about others. We wanted to expand our toolbox, so that we could be more flexible and able to adapt workshops to different groups and topics. We found several articles that [[http://lib.fo.am/future_fabulators/scenario_methods#methods_comparisons|compare]] different methods and we dug deeper into the ones that resonated with our way of working. For example [[http://lib.fo.am/future_fabulators/scenario_methods#causal_layered_analysis|Causal Layered Analysis]] allows for a deeper conversation about social causes, worldviews and cultural myths (that reminded us of Stuart Brand’s [[http://www.jiscinfonet.ac.uk/tools/pace-layering/|Pace Layers]]); [[http://lib.fo.am/future_fabulators/scenario_methods#four_generic_futures|Four Generic Futures]] of the Manoa School allow for creation of 'extreme' scenarios; the [[http://lib.fo.am/future_fabulators/scenario_methods#morphological_analysisfar|Morphological Analysis]] is an interesting way to work with relationships between change drivers and resulting diverging scenarios. | ==== Scenario thinking ==== |
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| Aside from overarching methods, there are specific techniques that could help us improve aspects of the scenario process. To begin with, we want to be able to ask better questions and encourage an [[inquiring mind]], while being aware of our [[cognitive bias|cognitive biases]] and [[affective forecasting|emotions]]. We looked at how we can better structure a discussion about the past and present circumstances (and found interesting possibilities in the [[KPUU framework]] and [[integral scenario development]]). We looked at different ways to identify and present (interactions between) drivers of change (aka macro trends), including [[horizon scanning]], futures wheel, trend impact analysis or [[field anomaly relaxation]]. The question how to construct [[http://lib.fo.am/future_fabulators/scenario_methods#scenarios|scenarios]] lead us to learn about axes, branches, layers, fans and cones - all of which represent the different relationships between (elements) of possible, probable and/or preferred futures. What we used to call 'retrocasting' or 'scenario testing' (finding out how to get from here to different futures) actually has several names, most widespread being [[http://lib.fo.am/future_fabulators/scenario_methods#retrocasting|backcasting]] and incasting. Each of the methods and techniques led us to more promising leads, many of which we had to leave unexplored. However, we have an initial collection of [[scenario methods]] that has already sparked ideas about how we could use or adapt some of them in our work. We definitely feel less trapped by the GBN method that most often results in four scenarios based on two 'critical uncertainties'. | The first week of our research was preoccupied with methodology, since many of our practice oriented questions emerged from debriefs from our [[scenarios|scenario]] workshops. We had planned to investigate methods from various fields suitable for scenario development and prehearsals, but due to time constraints as well as the vastly disparate literature we focused on [[scenario building]] and [[scenario methods|its methods]]. We had previously worked with the [[http://lib.fo.am/future_fabulators/scenario_methods#x2_double_uncertainty|double uncertainty]] method and were curious to expand our toolbox, increase our ablility to adapt workshops to different groups and topics. After digesting several [[http://lib.fo.am/future_fabulators/scenario_methods#methods_comparisons|review articles]] comparing methods we dug deeper into those that resonated with our way of working. For example [[http://lib.fo.am/future_fabulators/scenario_methods#causal_layered_analysis|Causal Layered Analysis]] suggests ways to have deeper conversation about social causes, worldviews and cultural myths (with ressonances of Stuart Brand’s [[http://www.jiscinfonet.ac.uk/tools/pace-layering/|Pace Layers]]); [[http://lib.fo.am/future_fabulators/scenario_methods#four_generic_futures|Four Generic Futures]] of the Manoa School provide means for creating more 'extreme' scenarios; while [[http://lib.fo.am/future_fabulators/scenario_methods#morphological_analysisfar|Morphological Analysis]] looks like an interesting way to work with relationships between change drivers and resulting divergent scenarios. |
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| <html><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/zzkt/8704102463/" title="Untitled by zzkt, on Flickr"><img src="https://farm9.staticflickr.com/8399/8704102463_9b55e58dee_c.jpg" width="800" height="428" alt="Untitled"></a></html> | Aside from these general methods, there are several specific techniques that may help us improve aspects of the scenario process. To begin with, we want to be able to ask better questions and encourage an [[inquiring mind]], while being aware of our [[cognitive bias|cognitive biases]] and [[affective forecasting|emotions]]. We looked at how we could better structure a discussion about the past and present circumstances (finding interesting possibilities in the [[KPUU framework]] and [[integral scenario development]]). We looked at different ways to identify and present (interactions between) drivers of change (aka macro-trends), including [[horizon scanning]], futures wheel, trend impact analysis or [[field anomaly relaxation]]. The question how to construct [[http://lib.fo.am/future_fabulators/scenario_methods#scenarios|scenarios]] lead us deeper into the territory of axes, branches, layers, fans and cones (no specialist field is complete without a working vocabulary) - all of which can represent different relationships between (elements) of possible, probable and/or preferred futures. What we have previously called 'retrocasting' or 'scenario testing' (probing the paths from "here" to various projected futures) goes by several names, the most widespread being "[[http://lib.fo.am/future_fabulators/scenario_methods#retrocasting|backcasting]]" and/or "incasting". Exploring each of these methods and techniques has of course revealed more promising leads, many of which have been left unexplored for now. However, our initial collection of [[scenario methods]] is now more extensive and has already sparked ideas about how we could use or adapt some of them in our work. We feel less constrained by the GBN method which we had become familiar with, and the limits of four scenarios based on two 'critical uncertainties'. |
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| === Experiential futures === | {{>http://www.flickr.com/photos/zzkt/8704102463/}} |
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| | ==== Experiential futures ==== |
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| Just as we were getting overwhelmed with [[http://lib.fo.am/future_fabulators/scenario_methods#futures_research_methods|futures research methods]] that were only partially relevant to our practice, Justin Pickard sent a link to Stuart Candy’s thesis "[[The Futures of Everyday Life]]". Written in 2010, this work provides a strong theoretical and practical grounding for our future pre-enactments, that could fall into the category that the author branded '[[experiential futures]]' (a term that we’ll happily adopt, as it fits better than say 'design fiction' or 'speculative design'). We had a couple of inspiring conversations with Stuart that uncovered many common threads. He shares our belief in the need for diffusing foresight in daily situations, sharing tools and techniques with people beyond board rooms and large institutions. We would happily use terms like 'ambient foresight' 'immersive situations' and '[[guerrilla futures]]' to describe what we’ve been doing with alternate reality narratives and prehearsals. | |
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| Finding ourselves on a more familiar transdisciplinary theory, we began collecting names and works related to [[design fiction]], a field that has gained traction in the last decade, merging design and foresight, to create objects, spaces and experiences as futures prototypes. We complemented the usual suspects as Bruce Sterling, Superflux, Dunne & Raby, The Extrapolation Factory with people and works from the arts, games, movies and architecture, such as Nelly Ben Hayoun, Natalie Jeremijenko, Atelier van Lieshout, Angelo Vermeulen, Adrian Hon and others. Because we are relatively familiar with the field, we haven’t spent too much time looking through the many interesting projects. However, this is something that could benefit from further studies, conversations, comparisons, pattern-finding, etc. | As we were aproximatly knee-deep in [[http://lib.fo.am/future_fabulators/scenario_methods#futures_research_methods|futures research methods]] many of which were only partially relevant to our practice, Justin Pickard diverted our attention to Stuart Candy’s thesis "[[The Futures of Everyday Life]]". Written in 2010, his work provides a strong theoretical and practical grounding for what he calls "[[experiential futures]]" a term that we’ll happily adopt, as it seems to fit better than say 'design fiction' or 'speculative design' for our future pre-enactments. We had a couple of inspiring conversations with Stuart and uncovered many common threads. He shares our belief in the need for diffusing foresight in daily situations, sharing tools and techniques with people beyond boardrooms and large institutions. We would happily adopt terms like 'ambient foresight' 'immersive situations' and '[[guerrilla futures]]' to describe what we’ve been doing with alternate reality narratives and prehearsals. |
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| Another interesting marriage of disciplines is [[action foresight]] that combines action research and futures studies. One of the inspiring proponents of this field is Jose Ramos, whom we hope to contact soon to find out more about his work at the edges between futures, activism and community development. This work is particularly relevant to our inclination towards creating change in the present, as we’re still stumbling to formulate on the [[possible futures parallel presents]] and [[non predictive strategy]] pages. We know there is something there that needs surfacing, but we can’t point a finger to it yet. It has something to do with finding ways to thrive in turbulence, including [[strategies for antifragility]], [[doing democracy]] and perhaps even a touch of the [[rewilding etiquette]]. Further research and/or practice required. | Finding ourselves on more familiar transdisciplinary theory, we continued collecting references to [[design fiction]], a field that has gained traction in recent years, merging design and foresight, to create objects, spaces and experiences as futures prototypes. Alongside (the now usual suspects) Bruce Sterling, Superflux, Dunne & Raby, The Extrapolation Factory are people and works spanning the arts, games, movies and architecture, such as Nelly Ben Hayoun, Natalie Jeremijenko, Atelier van Lieshout, Angelo Vermeulen, Adrian Hon and others. We haven’t spent too much time looking through many new and interesting projects but this is something that could benefit from further studies, conversations, comparisons, pattern-finding, etc. |
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| All of the research related to experiential futures is at the moment geared towards [[prehearsing the future]] and the improvement of our [[prehearsal pocket guide]]. In the three short weeks that we had at our disposal, we didn’t get very far in exploring different [[prehearsal methods]], but we left enough pointers that we (or anyone else interested) could pick up where we left off. We will first dig into various improvisational threads, including "Impro" by Keith Johnstone, and other pointers that we discussed with Sarah Neville, during a follow up of her [[residencies|Weather Lore residency]]. | Another interesting marriage of disciplines emerged as [[action foresight]] combining action research and futures studies. One of the inspiring proponents of this field is Jose Ramos, who caries out his work at the edges between futures, activism and community development. This work is particularly relevant to our inclination towards creating change in the present, as we’re still gradually formulating ideas around [[possible futures parallel presents]] and [[non predictive strategy]]. We know there are somethings there that needs surfacing, but we can’t point a finger to it yet. It has something to do with finding ways to thrive in turbulence, including [[strategies for antifragility]], [[doing democracy]] and perhaps even a touch of [[rewilding etiquette]]. Further research and/or practice required. |
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| === What next? === | All of the research related to experiential futures is at the moment geared towards [[prehearsing the future]] and improving our [[prehearsal pocket guide]]. In the three short weeks at our disposal, we haven’t got as far as we would have liked in exploring different [[prehearsal methods]], but we think there are enough pointers that we (or anyone else interested) could pick up "later". Next are various threads around improvisation, including various experiments from "Impro" by Keith Johnstone, and some other pointers discussed with Sarah Neville, during a follow up of her [[residencies|Weather Lore residency]]. |
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| As our current research retreat comes to an end, we can only conclude that we’re just beginning. We have left many threads open, messy and unknotted, which is on one hand frustrating, but on the other we know that our investigations found a fertile ground. We hope to get back to the research in between our practical experiments, but we’d also like to encourage all of the Future Fabulators, and anyone else interested in these subjects to keep feeding these pages with interesting, relevant and/or surprising information and insights. | ==== What next? ==== |
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| <html><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/zzkt/8647294919/" title="20130412 by zzkt, on Flickr"><img src="https://farm9.staticflickr.com/8102/8647294919_2141d7e13d_c.jpg" width="800" height="463" alt="20130412"></a></html> | As our current research phase comes to an end, we can only conclude that we’re just beginning. We have left many [[background]] threads open, messy and unknotted, which is somewhat frustrating, yet we know that some of our investigations have found fertile ground. We plan to get back to the research between our practical experiments, but we’d also like to encourage all of the Future Fabulators, and anyone else interested in these subjects to keep feeding these pages with interesting, relevant and/or surprising information and insights. |
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| | {{>http://www.flickr.com/photos/zzkt/8647294919/}} |
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nik