Workshop held at Z33 in Hasselt, Belgium on the 19th and 20th Nov. 2014, as part of Future Fictions

How will we live 3, 30, or 300 years into the future? What new benefits will we enjoy, and what sacrifices will we have to make? How will our designed artefacts represent us as people, as a culture? How can we think through objects about little things of life in the future? In this two day workshop the participants will work together to design a range of objects that could become a part of our lives in the future. We’ll tell their stories with short video clips that will be presented online and as part of the Future Fictions exhibition.

Participants: Anja Geuns, Marc Godon, Yvonne Knevels, Tim Boykett, Alex Davies, Nik Gaffney, Maja Kuzmanovic, Dan Admiss, Ellen De Vos, Florien Allemeersch, Jan-Willem  Vandenberghe

Facilitators: Chris Woebken and Elliott P. Montgomery

Photos of the workshop: https://www.flickr.com/photos/foam/sets/72157649362063212/
Photos of the worksheets: https://www.flickr.com/photos/foam/sets/72157649468310772

Reflections by Tim Boykett: http://loosediary.wordpress.com/2014/11/22/future-extrapolations/

The workshop was a two-day exploration of possible futures using the vernacular of cheap commercials / infomercials, TV shopping and everyday products. After a presentation of Extrapolation Factory and a short introduction of the participants, we proceeded to choose two sets of 'polarities' - contrasting concepts as black - white, fast - slow, abstract - figurative, etc. The polarities functioned as scenario axes on a 2×2 matrix. The choices were made by each participant based on their personal preferences, cutting out the usual discussions about change drivers in conventional foresight. The participants had a few minutes to individually fill in a few keywords in each of the four quadrants. The next step was to pick one of the quadrants/scenarios and create “A day in the life…” story, taking into account what the STEEP influences might be (STEEP stands for social, technological, environmental, economic and political influences). The story was then enriched with a few 'instances' of emerging developments as reported in the media, primarily from bio- and eco-technology. These instances were predefined by Extrapolation Factory, the participants could choose 2-3 printed quotes from the available selection. Based on the previous steps the participants defined the primary needs, challenges and desires of the chosen scenario and proceeded to design a product (or service) to meet them. Most of the first afternoon was spent prototyping the products and creating a storyboard for an infomercial that would 'sell' them through a TV shopping network.

The second day was spent in production mode, at the AV studio of the Province of Limburg. Extrapolation Factory created backgrounds for most commercials, while the participants staged the live action that would be keyed-in over the backgrounds with assistance of the AV team of the province. The participants also wrote the texts for the voice overs, with one of the participants being casted as a voice talent to record them. Extrapolation Factory left instructions for the AV team to finalise the videos after the workshop finished. The videos are supposed to be ready before the end of the year, to be included in the Future Fictions exhibition. The workshop ended with FoAM's thematic Apero in the Futures Lab at Z33, where snacks and drinks were paired with elements of the workshop process.

(Currently in the process of being edited by the AV team of the Province of Limburg…)