This document discusses three dimensions of foresight: difference, depth, and diversity.
Difference refers to the idea that the future context will not be the same as the present. Depth emphasizes experiencing hypothetical futures viscerally. Diversity acknowledges that there are multiple possible futures rather than a single future. Examples like experiential scenarios and games aim to illustrate these dimensions and help people navigate change. Foresight practices incorporating difference, depth and diversity can help design preferable alternatives and make wise choices.
Three Dimensions of Foresight: Difference, Depth and Diversity
1. THREe dimensions
of foresight
Stuart Candy, PhD
Director, Situation Lab
Associate Professor of Design
Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh PA
#FromTheFutures
Columbia DSL
April 09, 02020
@futuryst / futuryst.blogspot.com
@sitlab / situationlab.org
4. “In a time of extreme change, From the
Futures attempts to collectively make sense of the
present, through the shared imagining and
prototyping of a better tomorrow.”
Source: fromthefutures.org
5. “Instead of just hoping to return to our old normal,
what would it mean to collectively muster our
courage, creativity and resilience to make the
futures we envision a reality?”
Source: fromthefutures.org
6. Most of us have extensive experience
with science / speculative fiction
images of the future
7.
8. We could have a very interesting
conversation about the ways in which
these stories do and do not prepare us
to navigate actual change in the world
9.
10. The field of futures studies or foresight
has emerged over the past half century
to tackle the challenges of thinking
more effectively about various possible
worlds that might actually come about
11. It has a more academic side
(e.g. understanding the “images of the
future” people carry and how these
influence action), and an applied side
(e.g. understanding how to help
organisations, companies and communities
of all kinds navigate change)
13. Over the past decade and half, building on this
foundation, my colleagues and I have been
developing new theories and practices that bridge in
particular to media, the arts and design…
14. Experiential futures:
“the design of situations and stuff from the
future to catalyse insight and change”
See: Candy & Dunagan (2017). Designing an Experiential Scenario, Futures, 86: 136-153
16. Today I’ll introduce futures/foresight in general,
and experiential futures in particular,
by talking about three kinds of thought
that these practices call for
28. The first serious game funded
by the CDC, Coral Cross (2009) was
an alternate reality game commissioned
by the Hawaii Department of Health
to support pandemic preparedness
30. Designed in late 2008 / early 2009 (early in
the days of social media), the story was based
on a flu pandemic set 2-3 years into the
future, and it imagined an effective peer-to-
peer emergency response in the islands,
coordinated on social media through an
(imaginary) organisation, Coral Cross
32. Shockingly, just weeks before the scheduled
launch of this painstakingly designed
pandemic preparedness alternate reality
game, there was an actual pandemic, the first
in over 40 years (H1N1 swine flu)
33. We retooled the project as an “emergent
reality game.” Since the pandemic was real,
Coral Cross had to be as well…
34. This story helps make the point about the
dimension of difference in two ways:
41. With a group of graduate students,*
we created a hypothetical product and
launched it as if it were real, at Canada’s largest
architecture and interior design show
* Situation Lab team at OCAD University (2015), Toronto: Bergur Ebbi Benediktsson, Nourhan Hegazy, Jennifer McDougall, and Prateeksha Singh
42. NaturePod™ (2015) put together the vogue for
“biophilic architecture” with the march of
screens into every aspect of our lives, taking
both to their logical (?) conclusion
57. There is an ‘experiential gulf’
between how we typically
represent/narrate futures
for serious purposes, and
what real situations feel like
on the ground
58. Thinking about change in the abstract,
at a high level, is one thing. But how
might we get under the skin?
59. If we want hypotheticals to make a real
difference, we need to experience that
difference for real
61. Plastic has in recent years become a kind of mini
environmental cause célèbre. A decade ago, for the
hundredth anniversary of mass plastic production,
we* did an installation at the California Academy of
Sciences to help put this issue on people’s radars.
* Stuart Candy, Jake Dunagan, Wallace J Nichols and Sarah Kornfeld
63. How to make the historical reality of
exponentially increasing plastic, and the
disturbing forecast (expected production
2010-2030 exceeding total ever
produced 1910-2010) register with
people at a gut level?
69. Situations
ABSTRACT
CONCRETE
Stuff
The Experiential Futures Ladder
@futuryst 2017
EXPERIENTIAL
GULF
Scenarios
Settings KINDS OF FUTURE;
VAGUE DESCRIPTIONS
SPECIFIC FUTURE
HISTORIES OR STATES
1:1-SCALE, VISITABLE
REPRESENTATIONS OF TIME
AND PLACE
ARTIFACTS OR
MATERIAL INSTANTIATIONS
85. How may this idea of diversity or plurality
of possible futures be used in practice?
86. Example: Hawaii 2050
See: Candy (2016). Ghosts of Futures Past. https://futuryst.blogspot.com/2016/08/ghosts-of-futures-past.html
87. A scenario from “Hawaii 2050”
Source: Candy, Dator, & Dunagan (2006). Four Futures for Hawaii 2050. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/253641086
88. To help kick off a public conversation and a process
intended to co-create a sustainability plan for
Hawaii (in 2006), we* turned four written scenarios
about the islands in the year 2050 into four
experiential scenarios for 500+ people to inhabit
* Stuart Candy and Jake Dunagan, then at Hawaii Research Center for Futures Studies, with a team of designers, improv actors and volunteers
89. Source: Stuart Candy / Hawaii Research Center
for Futures Studies 2006. Photos: Cyrus Camp
92. Example: The Time Machine
See: Candy (2013) in Briggs, ed. 72 Assignments. Paris: PCA Press. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/305333152
93. The Time Machine is an experiential futures approach for art, design, and foresight
practitioners and learners to create a room-scale experience from the future.
Developed / deployed to date at:
• Carnegie Mellon University
• North Carolina State University, Durham NC
• CEDIM, Mexico City
• OCAD University, Toronto
• California College of the Arts, San Francisco
• National University of Singapore
94. Any changed future world would manifest
in countless rooms within that world
95.
96. A Time Machine is a room created to make it
possible to visit and immerse in a future world
97.
98. How can you make use of this principle
now? Especially since, in your teams,
you’ll be telling one story rather than a
whole set
103. Tool: The Thing From The Future
See: Candy (2018), “Gaming Futures Literacy.” In Miller, ed. Transforming the Future. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/312016855
104. The Thing From The Future is a card game for scaffolding imagination,
discussion and prototyping of specific things from countless alternative
futures. Co-designed with Jeff Watson (USC).
Deployed to date, for example, at:
• International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, Geneva
• Museum of Tomorrow, Rio de Janeiro
• Nesta’s FutureFest, London
• UNDP, New York
• UNESCO, Paris
• Cook Inlet Tribal Council, Alaska
• Massachusetts Institute of Technology
• New York University
• The INK Conference, India
• Maker Festival, Toronto
• IDEO
• Dropbox (…and many more)
105. governance
future
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what is it?
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106. governance
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there is a
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107. THE FAMILY
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there is a related to
what is it?
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#FutureThing by Stuart Candy and Jeff Watson | @sitlab 2018
108. THE FAMILY
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113. First dimension: Difference.
The future is another place.
Look for seeds of change that could be really
transformative if they were to grow
114. Second dimension: Depth.
Any future that we get
will be as real and complex
as the present is.
We must try to not just think, but also feel,
our way into these future conditions,
to grapple with them effectively
115. Third dimension: Diversity.
The future is always multiple
potentials, not just one.
Look for something new and valuable
to bring to the ecology of thinkable futures
116. And futures imagined with
Difference, Depth, and Diversity
enable a fourth D:
Design
117. We can’t exercise wiser choices
without alternatives.
We won’t discern alternatives
without looking for them.
118. Not just successful organisation-
level navigation of change, but our
collective future as a species,
depends on using our capacity to
imagine worlds together –
“social foresight”
See: Candy (2010), The Futures of Everyday Life. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/305280378
119. The risks of not having these
competencies built into our
societies and institutions are
increasingly obvious
120. At the same time, the huge upside
potential of making these ways of
thinking and designing normal is
only just starting to be seen