Alternative Futures at Design Develop Transform
Total Page：16
File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb
compass www.apf.org JULY 2017 15 years on Also in this issue Book reviews: Manoa’s images Bringing the IN THIS ISSUE Emily Jaworski brings of the futures futures to life The future of trust Craig Perry on what 16 pages on the a first-timer’s view to Nigel Jones and Nick futurists can learn fom Jim Dator’s keynote Compass talks to Design Develop the 15th anniversary Stuart Candy, Price on new ways to Philip Tetlock’s from the DDT Transform Gathering in Seattle, futures event in John Sweeney, think about trust in an Superforecasting. conference in with a new world of age of digital Brussels, in which he Mei-Mei Song, health, the climate And Charles Brass Maya van Belgium on technological systems. lays out the Manoa alternate images of change casino, and, wel, reads Jennifer Gidley’s futures and the Leemput and asteroid mining. Page 23-25 Very Short Bram Goots on the future rationale for them. Plus other news fom Introduction to The their designs for Pages 2-6 And five pages on Seattle. Future. their alternate the 15th Pages 18-22 Page 26-29 futures. anniversary Pages 7-16 Gathering in Seattle . Photo: BramPhoto: Goots Alternative futures at Design Develop Transform Nullamwww.apf.org arcu leo, facilisis ut DESIGN DEVELOP TRANSFORM ALTERNATIVE FUTURES FIELD NOTES FROM DESIGN DEVELOP TRANSFORM Design Develop Transform was held in Brussels and Antwerp in June. It was organised by the Manoa’s four generic images of Erasmus University College’s centre of expertise, Applied Futures Research | Open Time. the futures The two days of the conference in Antwerp were held at the city’s by Jim Dator modern art museum, M HKA, which hosted ‘A Temporary For most of human history change and uncertainty are constant, Futures Institute’ exhibition over the —for tens of thousands of years—humans where no one can—or should—say with summer following renovation and lived in societies where there was very confidence: “do this, because if it worked reopening. The exhibition was co- little social or environmental change. Past, before, it surely will work tomorrow”. curated by Senior Curator Anders present, and future seemed exactly the Our situation is as if we had been Krueger and Maya van Leemput, same. Indeed, the best way to anticipate and was open to the public. standing for a very long time on a large the future was to imitate the past, and the old-fashioned movie film. We look down The ‘Temporary Futures Institute’ best people to ask about the future were and see the scene in the frame in which we was built around Jim Dator’s four old people who could tell you what it was are standing, and we look forward, and as images of the future: grow, like before they were born. They thus transform, discipline, and collapse. far as we can see, the scene in each frame In this section we have an could tell you what was the best path seems the same as it is where we stand extended report on the event. forward without any fear of contradiction now. And if we look backwards, we see the or failure. same thing: not much change that we can This includes the text of Jim Dator’s keynote on the four But for some time you and I have lived see from the past to now. futures, a short overview of the in a very different world; one in which conference by Peter Bishop, and interviews with the futurists who were commissioned to create works for the ‘Temporary Institute’ on the theme of the four futures. The APF led a workshop at the event; look out for a report on that in the next issue. The photos in this section are by Bram Goots, and are his copyright, unless otherwise specified. Compass is privileged to have access to such fine images. There is more on both the conference and the exhibition at the DDT website. (AC) 2 APF Compass | July 2017 DESIGN DEVELOP TRANSFORM It was like that for so long that we are all Once in a while something truly Old ways were being destroyed. There biologically programmed to expect the transformative would happen: Some one were many things about the new ways that future to be essentially like the present, would invent writing, and all the customs people found better than the old—as well just as the present is essentially like the and rules that served oral cultures so well as many things about the old ways that past. There was no reason for uncertainty would be tested and fail. New rules, new were being lost and replaced by things or anxiety for the most part. Just follow institutions, new ideas, new ways of inferior, flimsy, flighty, ephemeral. the rules, do as you are told, and thinking based on writing would replace Some people tried to hold on to the old everything will be as good as it can be. the old ones based on word-of-mouth, ways but often could not because there Indeed, it was dangerous to imagine, which then would rule for thousands of seemed to be no way to turn off the much less to strive for, novelty. Leave well years until the printing press replaced the projector. We were being propelled into enough alone. If it works, keep it working. people, institutions, and practices that had unknown futures against our wills, to the The ape who swings for the visionary bow evolved around handwriting, while newer great pleasure of some and to the extreme will not live to pass on his genes. rules, newer institutions, newer ideas, and agony of others. Indeed, today’s winners newer ways of thinking based on the Of course every once in a while often became tomorrow’s losers as new cheap and rapid sharing of printed ideas something would occur to disrupt the technologies brought new behaviors that replaced the old ones. predictability of the future. Your produced newer values that challenged old community could be suddenly overrun by But eventually, the rate of social and values provoked by old behavior produced a tribe that had much more powerful tools environmental change itself picked up and by old technologies. than you do. An earthquake could devour began to accelerate. The time between one Suddenly, what had been one long predictable future was in doubt, and in its place many alternative images of the Each of the millions of images futures sprang up, flourished, and faded while others grew, merged, persisted, until in place of one future—or one thousand— of the futures are variations it became possible to see that there were in fact four generic, basic, mutually- of one of four generic and exclusive images of the futures that existed in different peoples’ minds, stories, fundamentally-different songs, plans, and actions around the world. When I first became seriously interested images. in understanding the future, I assumed I could accurately predict the future by your village. New diseases could sweep new invention and the next got shorter using computer models. through bearing everyone away. Your and shorter. People were constantly having But the more I looked and read, the community could outstrip the carrying- to learn how to adapt to the new before more I saw that I could be content with capacity of its environment. A they had barely come to understand the predicting one future only if I were shipwrecked sailor might show up with a old. content to ignore all the other different new pair of genes, and suddenly the It was as though someone had picked up images of the futures that existed. And I biological basis of your community could the old movie film off the floor, placed it could not do that. Each image had its own significantly alter. in a motion picture projector, and turned epistemological base, its own logic, its own But most of the time, after a brief period on the switch. Suddenly we saw that we set of facts, its own preferred vision, and I of uncertainty and confusion, a new could no longer predict the future on the could not find any basis for me to assert normal would emerge and everything basis of the present or past. None of us that one was correct and all the rest would be predictable once again. could be sure what was coming next. wrong. Rather, I concluded that it was my APF Compass | July 2017 3 DESIGN DEVELOP TRANSFORM duty as a futurist to gather and explore as Faling into sleep, many images of the future as possible, and Drifing into dreams, to help my students—and my clients—to Cosmic crashes in my eye, consider these images fairly and Cosmic flashes in my brain thoroughly. Cosmic rays and Wilson clouds, But no one can consider them all, and so after a great deal of looking and thinking Clear my consciousness. over many years, I finally realized that all Memories of infinity, of the millions of different images of the Particles of eternity future are specific variations of one of four Starlettes pierce my eyes, generic, basic, fundamentally-different In my brain fire flies. images. The labels we have used have Because of cheap and abundant oil, varied over time but now we designate the modern methods of urban sanitation and four Grow, Collapse/New Beginnings, medicine enabled more people to be born, Collapse Discipline, or Transform. thrive, and live to ripe old ages causing massive and sudden local and global But wait, many other population growth.