Designing for 2050
Syllabus⇝
What futures do we want to remember by 2050? What stories do we need to imagine collectively today to be able to shape better tomorrows 1 billion seconds from now? In fact, what is a billion? How can a thought experiment as reimagining the meaning the internet(s) and thinking of it in plural, empower us and change the way we relate between humans, non-humans and with the Planet? What if we start thinking of ourselves as internet citizens rather than internet users?
In this course, participants will work in collaborative ways to design fictional narratives around the concept of internet citizenships and post-technological futures, integrating their final projects and research insights, using as a 1 billion second time horizon together with key insights from the research themes that IAM has been exploring in the last years, in particular from 2019’s theme: The Quantumness of Archipelagos, a ‘what if?’ remix of ideas coming from philosophy, geography, queer theory and quantum physics, shaped as an experimental thinking tool to deal with the complexity of our realities and a lens through which we can imagine alternatives, collectively.
The course will run as an experimental studio during 12 hours (split into 4 sessions), where participants will need self-organise to achieve a collective goal, refine the key questions shaping their projects, practice consensus, reflection, self-grading and shared learnings that will inform the individual projects and also the group performance. The main goal of this format is not only the quality of the final output but most importantly the collective learnings from running a studio, working in collaborative ways and developing interconnected mindsets around three main ideas: critical optimism, long-term strategies and planetary narratives.
Deliverables⇝
A pilot for an alternative version of ‘Black Mirror’ made-up of 5 episodes.
Additional Resources⇝
‘Provisions - Observing & Archiving COVID-19’ by Site Magazine
'Down to Earth: Politics in the New Climatic Regime' by Bruno LaTour
‘Poetics of Relation’ by Édouard Glissant
‘The Mushroom at the End of the World: On the Possibility of Life in Capitalist Ruins’ by Anna Lowenhaupt Tsing
‘Everything is Someone’ by Simone Rebaudengo and Joshua Noble
‘Black Quantum Futurism Theory & Practice, Volume I’ by Rasheedah Phillips
‘Beyond Nature and Culture’ by Philippe Descola
‘Stories of your Life and Others’ by Ted Chiang
‘A question of tech’ by Gauthier Roussilhe
‘The Shock of the Old: Technology and Global History Since 1900’ by David Edgerton
‘Goodbye Uncanny Valley’ by Alan Warburton
Faculty⇝
Andres Colmenares (CO/ES) is the co-founder of IAM, the creative research and strategic design lab helping citizens and organisations make responsible decisions by using futures as tools to anticipate challenges and opportunities, while exploring the socio-ecological impacts of digital technologies and the internet(s) through collective learning initiatives, partnerships and commissioned projects. He is also strategic advisor for WeTransfer’s Supporting Act Foundation, director of the Master in Design for Responsible Artificial Intelligence systems at ELISAVA and faculty member of the Master in City & Technology at IAAC.