Syllabus
In the online delivery of the program, content is facilitated over 2 days with four 3.5-4 hour sessions hosted on a combination of Zoom and Mural platforms.
Day One
Session 1: Welcome & Introduction to Speculation
Get to know you fellow participants and warm-up your imagination before diving into the history of speculation and examples of the many diverse settings in which it occurs today: art, design, business, social impact etc. Learn how to analyze your own and other’s existing speculative projects in order to gain insights about how/where they are successfully provocative and impactful. Receive an introduction to the Futures x Design framework and when/how to use it.
Session 2: Extrapolate
Learn how to examine the implications of emergent futures from today. Use Implications Wheels to map the implications of one signal or provocation across different domains. Extrapolate these implications into future time scales using the 10/100/1000 method. Synthesize and combine your implications with others to create a rich speculative future world using WorldLibs. Leverage the Best/Worst Futures method to push the boundaries of your speculation and identify strong provocative scenarios within it.
Day Two
Session 3: Create & Experience
See great examples of speculative projects across mediums and practices to better inform your own process and creativity. Create 2D, 3D, and 4D prototypes from the speculative future world you imagined in session 2. Learn how to critique and lead constructive discussions that help others experience your speculation, and provide feedback on how to make it stronger. Work with others to place the artifact you have created into a narrative scenario that showcases how it might be interacted with or experienced in the context of your future world.
Session 4: Experience & Strategize
Showcase your worlds, scenarios, and artifacts to the full class (in groups) and learn how to use the Encourage/Avoid framework to help larger audiences experience your speculation with more structure and clarity in order to provide more actionable feedback. Use Backasting and Urgency Matrixes to connect both the positive and negative implications of your speculative artifacts and scenarios with strategic actions that can be taken today. Wrap up the course by zooming out to reconsider the Futures x Design framework in its totality, and how moving through the different mindsets and activities has taken us full circle.