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| future_fabulators:foam_at_data_ecologies_2014 [2014-05-24 12:14] – created maja | future_fabulators:foam_at_data_ecologies_2014 [2014-05-24 13:34] (current) – nik |
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| ==== FoAM At Data Ecologies 2014 ==== | ==== FoAM At Data Ecologies 2014 ==== |
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| | (presentation at data ecologies 2014. related notes can be found at [[de14 notes]]) |
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| | "The future is already here — it's just unevenly ridiculous"((The Gibson-Dator Corollary)) |
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| Often when we begin working on something 'futures' related at FoAM, doubt is the order of the day. We doubt the methods and their origins - and the moral issues around borrowing from corporate, bureaucratic or military structures - whose predictions, in our eyes, have brought us to a present that is unsustainable from a social, economic and environmental point of view. We doubt the analytical and predominantly verbal and rational approaches to talking about the future. We doubt we understand the field at all, as it seem so scattered and shrouded in mist from the outside. Some of us even doubt that working with anything beyond astrology could be a legitimate method to explore the future. But the most recurring doubt is whether spending too much time worrying or dreaming about futures takes us away from fully experiencing and appreciating the present moment - the only time we truly have to live in. | Often when we begin working on something 'futures' related at FoAM, doubt is the order of the day. We doubt the methods and their origins - and the moral issues around borrowing from corporate, bureaucratic or military structures - whose predictions, in our eyes, have brought us to a present that is unsustainable from a social, economic and environmental point of view. We doubt the analytical and predominantly verbal and rational approaches to talking about the future. We doubt we understand the field at all, as it seem so scattered and shrouded in mist from the outside. Some of us even doubt that working with anything beyond astrology could be a legitimate method to explore the future. But the most recurring doubt is whether spending too much time worrying or dreaming about futures takes us away from fully experiencing and appreciating the present moment - the only time we truly have to live in. |
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| <blockquote>it is spoken… of Spirits and Conjurations; of Gods, Spheres, Planes, and many other things which may or may not exist. It is immaterial whether these exist or not. By doing certain things certain results will follow; students are most earnestly warned against attributing objective reality or philosophic validity to any of them.</blockquote> | <blockquote>it is spoken… of Spirits and Conjurations; of Gods, Spheres, Planes, and many other things which may or may not exist. It is immaterial whether these exist or not. By doing certain things certain results will follow; students are most earnestly warned against attributing objective reality or philosophic validity to any of them. --Aleister Crowley</blockquote> |
| - Aleister Crowley | |
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| == Lightness == | ==== Lightness ==== |
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| <blockquote>“…my working method has more often than not involved the subtraction of weight. I have tried to remove weight, sometimes from people, sometimes from heavenly bodies, sometimes from cities; above all I have tried to remove weight from the structure ofstories and from language.” </blockquote> | <blockquote>…my working method has more often than not involved the subtraction of weight. I have tried to remove weight, sometimes from people, sometimes from heavenly bodies, sometimes from cities; above all I have tried to remove weight from the structure ofstories and from language. </blockquote> |
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| * studying formal methods and making them lighter by reduction to essentials - working with assumptions when possible and detailed analysis when needed, keeping data influx to a minimum, removing overstructured aspects that are difficult to comprehend by the participants who have to think on their feet | * studying formal methods and making them lighter by reduction to essentials - working with assumptions when possible and detailed analysis when needed, keeping data influx to a minimum, removing overstructured aspects that are difficult to comprehend by the participants who have to think on their feet |
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| == Quickness == | ==== Quickness ==== |
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| <blockquote>“Quickness of style and thought means above all agility, mobility, and ease, all qualities that go with writing where it is natural to digress, to jump from one subject to another, to lose the thread a hundred times and find it again after a hundred more twists and turns.”</blockquote> | <blockquote>“Quickness of style and thought means above all agility, mobility, and ease, all qualities that go with writing where it is natural to digress, to jump from one subject to another, to lose the thread a hundred times and find it again after a hundred more twists and turns.”</blockquote> |
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| * facilitation of futures sessions has a lot to do with requires Calvino’s quickness. Not only are we content-wise jumping back and forward in time, but the pace and the flow of the sessions must be directed to assist, confuse, challenge or encourage the participants to experience the 'stretchyness of the now' | * facilitation of futures sessions has a lot to do with requires Calvino’s quickness. Not only are we content-wise jumping back and forward in time, but the pace and the flow of the sessions must be directed to assist, confuse, challenge or encourage the participants to experience the 'stretchyness of the now' |
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| == Exactitude == | ==== Exactitude ==== |
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| “To my mind exactitude means three things above all: | <blockquote> To my mind exactitude means three things above all: |
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| * (1) a well-defined and well-calculated plan for the work in question; | * (1) a well-defined and well-calculated plan for the work in question; |
| * (2) an evocation of clear, incisive, memorable visual images; | * (2) an evocation of clear, incisive, memorable visual images; |
| * (3) a language as precise as possible both in choice of words and in expression of the subtleties of thought and imagination” | * (3) a language as precise as possible both in choice of words and in expression of the subtleties of thought and imagination |
| | </blockquote> |
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| * facilitating a futures session might seem effortless at the time it happens, but a very careful planning and testing process must come before. When we have the time, we can spend hours or days fine-tuning the flow and each component of a workshop - making sure to include all the phases of the process - intellectual, creative, conversational, somatic and interpersonal. | * facilitating a futures session might seem effortless at the time it happens, but a very careful planning and testing process must come before. When we have the time, we can spend hours or days fine-tuning the flow and each component of a workshop - making sure to include all the phases of the process - intellectual, creative, conversational, somatic and interpersonal. |
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| -> Calvino alludes to an old Chinese parable whereby a king asks an artist to draw a crab. The artist replies that he needs five years, a country house and twelve servants. Five years later the drawing has not began. “I need another five years,” says the artist, and the king grants them. At the end of these ten years, the artist picks up his brush and, in an instant, with a single stroke, he draws a crab, the most perfect crab ever seen. | Calvino alludes to an old Chinese parable whereby a king asks an artist to draw a crab. The artist replies that he needs five years, a country house and twelve servants. Five years later the drawing has not began. “I need another five years,” says the artist, and the king grants them. At the end of these ten years, the artist picks up his brush and, in an instant, with a single stroke, he draws a crab, the most perfect crab ever seen. |
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| * this reminds me of the craft of harvesting and summarising conversations: finding patterns in the chaos of words and concepts that float around in a co-creative experiment. Every word that is written down during a scenario building process should be carefully crafted, understood by everyone to mean the same thing, or it can topple the process… The language in scenario building shouldn’t be careless - it’s a craft in its own. As in a physical narrative TU described yesterday - everything should be edited for clarity - the elements of the process, the instructions, the setting, the atmosphere… We work on gradually eliminating tangential elements and endless discussions. We don’t do this only to avoid confusion, but to increase intensity of experience. There has to be just enough context and just enough shared experience to bring out the most memorable stories. | * this reminds me of the craft of harvesting and summarising conversations: finding patterns in the chaos of words and concepts that float around in a co-creative experiment. Every word that is written down during a scenario building process should be carefully crafted, understood by everyone to mean the same thing, or it can topple the process… The language in scenario building shouldn’t be careless - it’s a craft in its own. As in a physical narrative TU described yesterday - everything should be edited for clarity - the elements of the process, the instructions, the setting, the atmosphere… We work on gradually eliminating tangential elements and endless discussions. We don’t do this only to avoid confusion, but to increase intensity of experience. There has to be just enough context and just enough shared experience to bring out the most memorable stories. |
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| == Visibility == | ==== Visibility ==== |
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| <blockquote>“If I have included visibility in my list of values to be saved, it is to give warning of the danger we run in losing a basic human faculty: the power of bringing visions into focus with our eyes shut, of bringing forth forms and colours from the lines of black letters on a white page, and in fact of thinking in terms of images.”</blockquote> | <blockquote>“If I have included visibility in my list of values to be saved, it is to give warning of the danger we run in losing a basic human faculty: the power of bringing visions into focus with our eyes shut, of bringing forth forms and colours from the lines of black letters on a white page, and in fact of thinking in terms of images.”</blockquote> |
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| * first - making the process visible -> libarynth, pocket guide, futurist field guide - sometimes the story makes more sense when we know where it comes from - especially if we want to build on it. | * first - making the process visible -> libarynth, pocket guide, futurist field guide - sometimes the story makes more sense when we know where it comes from - especially if we want to build on it. |
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| == Multiplicity == | ==== Multiplicity ==== |
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| <blockquote> “Literature remains alive only if we set ourselves immeasurable goals, far beyond all hope of achievement…the grand challenge for literature is to be capable of weaving together the various branches of knowledge, the various “codes” into a manifold and multifaceted vision of the world.”</blockquote> | <blockquote> “Literature remains alive only if we set ourselves immeasurable goals, far beyond all hope of achievement…the grand challenge for literature is to be capable of weaving together the various branches of knowledge, the various “codes” into a manifold and multifaceted vision of the world.”</blockquote> |
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| * in order to do include sufficient multiplicity when designing futures stories, we have to use multiple methods from available spectrum of disciplines that we discussed earlier | * in order to do include sufficient multiplicity when designing futures stories, we have to use multiple methods from available spectrum of disciplines that we discussed earlier |
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| == Consistency == | ==== Consistency ==== |
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| Finally - consistency… never finished | Finally - consistency… never finished |
maja