It’s been a while since we last put another visionary figure from the past in the spotlight. For that matter, let’s pay a visit to France, a country which has brought forth quite a few. Among them there is the fascinating Albert Robida (1848-1926) (or for those of you who understand French, see also here).

Albert Robida – visionary, illustrator, caricaturist, novellist – had a visual  mind, which allowed him to ‘distort’ reality and explore what such new forms of the world might mean. Both his drawings as well as his stories show a scenarist at heart, stage-setting an integrated view of a world yet to exist. He was a visionary who not only looked at technologies, but also at their consequences, social changes brought about in society, etc. In a unique way, his work showed a future ‘in context’.

In retrospect many of Robida’s boundless ‘fantasies’ at the time have turned into reality in one way or another, in some contexts, to certain degrees. His visionary mind’s eye saw the female’s struggle for gender equality, modern warfare with robotic missiles and poisoned gas, the ‘air-bus’ (cf. airliners), the phono-opéragraphe (cf. walkman), the ‘telephonoscope’ (cf. tv), ‘téléconférences’ (made me smile and think of our friend Otlet), mass produced food, the abolition of the death penalty, pollution and the need to conserve nature, mass-tourism, etc.

For those of you hungry for more, several of his written works are freely available online (e.g. The end of books, visit the French National Library’s online digital archives Gallica for several more of his works)

Vividly I remember Prof. Stefano Boeri‘s fascinating project (Liquid Europe &) Solid Sea in which he invited people to switch viewpoint and consider the Mediterranean as ‘land’ instead of sea and the land surrounding it as water. In doing so the concepts of migration, roads, ports, departure and arrival, frontiers, that which is fixed and that which is fluid, volatile, moving etc. and consequently planning and design for such an environment change completely.

Now the studio of which he is a cofounder, Multiplicity, is preparing a promising book titled ‘Milano. Cronache dell’abitare’ to be published by Giorgio Mondadori Publishers next month in which the future of Milan (timehorizon 2020) is portrayed and discussed along the lines of 3 possible scenarios:

1. Milan as a city, completely void of fixed residents, with life concentrated around commuters and grand events such as the Salone del Mobile and other fashion and design-related happenings.
2. Milan as an archipelago-like city in which each and every ethno-cultural-economic community has carved out its turf.
3. Milan as a city in which public services are no longer, yet where free agents and entrepreneurs flourish and have taken over ‘management’ of the city.

Via Elle Decor Italy

The MIT’s Department of Urban Studies & Planning together with the Center for International Studies is organizing a vision competition and problem-solving project to envision Jerusalem anno 2050:

By bringing together Palestinian and Israeli scholars, activists, business leaders, youth, and others, it seeks to understand what it would take to make Jerusalem , a city also known as Al Quds, claimed by two nations and central to three religions, a place of diversity and peace in which contending ideas and citizenries can co-exist in benign, yet creative, ways.

The project uniting in a sense creative thinking, design thinking (hopefully not only top-down spatially) and futures thinking, is described as a challenge for all to move beyond today’s binary logics often employed to address and assess the city of Jerusalem. As such one might describe the project also as a search for ‘third alternatives’, an approach not uncommon in futures thinking.

Via Archinect

Chlorofilia 2106 … a mysterious title for a fascinating project, a gaze into the long term future of what we call cities. The reason why I blog about this is threefold, since the project deals with:

- ways to visualize a possible future by means of images and story
- organic systems & organic metaphor as a lens through which to look at and act within/upon the world
- contemporary architecture

The History Channel recently held a competition inviting architectural teams to design a city of the future, to envision Los Angeles, New York and Chicago a hundred years from now.

One of several fascinating and inspiring entries from a futurist’s perspective was the work of the Xefirotarch team (Hernan Diaz Alonso and colleagues) who did a marvellous job envisioning an organic future for Los Angeles. In 2106 Los Angeles became Chlorofilia, it became a “self-sustaining, self-protecting natural ecology, used converted highways as aqueducts and dispersed nutrients into an adaptable organism that continuously adjusted itself to changes in demographics and housing requirements.”

Together with the renowned motion graphics office imaginary forces, the architects introduced a new Los Angeles by means of a future-scenario video set in 2106, interviewing a person looking at the city in retrospect, how it came to be, how society is organized differently, how mobility is differently (although perhaps not ‘that’ much), how communication takes place via ‘cloud’-technology instead of phones etc. As such they touch upon a variety of aspects of the city and city-life in the future, in a changed and ever-changing context. As experience has taught us, such portrayals are powerful and effective means to convey a multi-perspectival, contextualized image of the future to a large audience.

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Ask any filmfan to describe the future and many will – one way or another – refer to Blade Runner. The mastermind behind the Bladerunner imagery is ‘visual futurist’ Syd Mead.

Syd Mead worked as a designer for major companies such as Ford Motor Company, Philips and US Steel. Soon he delivered ‘futurist consultancy’ in the form of visual artwork for companies such as Chrysler, Sony and many others. Most of his medals however, Mead earned in the filmindustry working on large budget films such as Blade Runner, Tron, Star Trek – The Motion Picture, Mission Impossible III etc. as a conceptual artist.

Many will remember instantly the many futuristic chrome-finished modes of transport designed by Mead, yet what really sets his work apart from other conceptual artists in the field is the meticulous way in which he pays attention to ‘scenario’. Every object designed, every event depicted sits ‘in context’. It is this integrative approach to visualizing possible future worlds and societies which continues to push the limits of (en)visioning and imagineering, separating his work from mere scifi or fantasy drawings.
Sentury and Oblagon are two books showing some of the futuristic worlds designed by Syd Mead. For those of you who’d like to have a look behind the scenes , check out The Gnomon Workshop’s DVD series on Mead’s work and techniques.

On a more biographical note, filmmaker Joaquin Montalvan recently created the documentary ‘Visual Futurist: the art and life of Syd Mead’. A few months ago, Jean-Eric Hénault over at CGChannel interviewed Syd Mead at his home residence. Check out the video here. Ballistic Publishing features another illustrated interview on their website.

Beginning November, in the Liverpool area, BBC 3 Radio organized the fascinating Festival of Free Thinking with ‘the future’ as its central theme. A broad mix of people, ranging from academics and entrepreneurs, to advocates and cultural observers, thought freely about what might be next for technology and society, religion, urban planing, biotechnology, the UK, etc. Musical grandmaster and long time long term thinker Brian Eno (also of Long Now Foundation fame) gave the opening keynote.

Even electronic billboards were included in the crossmedial mix to engage a broad audience in the event. Future-related themes, discussed in the lectures or in lively pub discussions were transformed into fictional commercials for future products, future press releases etc. to be broadcasted on these e-billboards. These future designs, experiences were carefully crafted by IFTF’s Research and Design Manager, Jason Tester, and his team, who described it as “one of the most challenging experiments I’ve faced in the new discipline of futures design”. The reason was simple: there’s a big difference between an audience in context (e.g. a futures study) and an audience of random passers-by. Nevertheless, the creative results are definitely worth taking a look at.

At Pantopicon we like to see ‘futures design’ as an instance of experience design. One does not merely shape a ‘thing’, but an experiential envelope in which people will be wrapped and with(in) which they will interact. Futures design as are futures studies, are all about context in the first place, context not merely on a content-level, but also a communication level. Last but not least, every day we experience how useful it is to look at design as an attitude, an approach, with methods and techniques, also in terms of analysis of a situation, rather than in the traditional view of a ‘discipline of shaping things’. As such, and in many other ways, it blends seamlessly with futures studies, foresight and envisioning exercises.
Via IFTF’s Future Now

Among the names often heard in the context and history of scenariothinking, foresight and future studies are without doubt Shell and RAND. Along with several other organizations, they shaped significantly the approaches and methodologies used within the field.

The Insitute for the Future recently brought to attention once again a study published by RAND a few years ago, titled “Shaping the Next One Hundred Years : New Methods for Quantitative, Long-Term Policy Analysis” (pdf’s available on site). Alongside a historical overview of attempts to tackle the future, the report pays further attention to developments in computer science which might aid in long term policy analysis. From the study:

“This study proposes four key elements of successful LTPA:

• Consider large ensembles (hundreds to millions) of scenarios.
• Seek robust, not optimal, strategies.
• Achieve robustness with adaptivity.
• Design analysis for interactive exploration of the multiplicity of plausible futures.

These elements are implemented through an iterative process in
which the computer helps humans create a large ensemble of plau­
sible scenarios, where each scenario represents one guess about how
the world works (a future state of the world) and one choice of many
alternative strategies that might be adopted to influence outcomes.”

Via FutureNow

Siemens just released the fall issue of their quarterly research and innovation magazine “Pictures of the Future” (PDF version available). Packed with future-infused information, this number focusses on three major themes:
sustainable cities development, inventors and innovators, and machine vision. Each of the themes is introduced via a story set in the future, describing the situation as if it were now, thereby projecting the reader into the future and enhancing the experience of the central topic.

The magazine features articles, such as:

• Future story: The Green Hope (Mumbai in 2025)
• Sustainable megacities, an overview of developments in Chinese and Indian (mega)cities
• A study of quality of life worldwide

• Future story: Innovation mentors (October 2020)
• An overview of Siemens innovators and their innovations
• Learning together, deals with CSCW/L experiences of projects within Siemens worldwide
• Competing for talent, offers a forward look into needs of university of the future: globally networked teams
• The environment is the interface, European Commissioner Vivian Reding talks about NESSI (Networked European Software & Services Initiative), transform our lives through intuitive, service based interfaces
• Siemens’ Generation 21 (lifelong learning meets corporate-supported training/education)

• Future story: The ANS are coming, mobile, autonomous networked systems learn by seeing (machine vision)
• A holistic vision of data, continues along lines similar to the stepwise, networked approach from data to information (one could continue: to knowledge, to wisdom).
• A series of articles on machine vision

Thanks to Mark at Putting People First.

What if man would disappear off the face of the earth? How would it change our planet? How long would it take before man’s traces would disappear completely? NewScientist looked into it in a recent article titled “Imagine earth without people”. The Times of London added a timeline chart, accompanied by Piranesi-inspired imagery. Reactions online show that many people are amazed by the speed of the whole process. This shows once again how perception of time and change and projection of such dynamics as we know them from the past (no, not only dinosaurs) on our present context, can often make us look at reality in a different light. Describing and visualizing ‘what ifs’ such as ‘a planet without humans’, may trigger some healthy reflection as well.
Experience learns that sustainability is a wonderful trigger and grateful subject for future thinking. As in scenario-building, often you need extremes in order to open up and sharpen up people’s minds, make it clear that you are describing a totally different context, etc. Yet, they are instrumental to a certain aim. If the aim of this thought experiment were to find ways to reach a preferred future in which man’s footprint(s) on earth is minimalized, one would be curious to explore other possible pathways to achieve this – as we all know there are -, alternatives to ones with an outcome being as apocalyptic as man’s extinction. This way, lessons learned from a thought experiment such as this could become a trigger and lead to strategies for action.

Our friends over at worldchanging.com commented along similar lines.

Via: NewScientist

Philips’ Design’s latest issue of their quarterly publication New Value by One Design, features (among other interesting reading material) an article on how they look at and deal with the future.

Making sense of the future explains how and why Philips Design jumped on the foresight bandwagon early on. Josephine Green, Senior Director, Trends & Strategy, New Solutions Development:

“[Previously] most forescasting was driven by technology forecasting with the idea that technology drives the future. However, the future is not driven by one agent and it is not predictable, it is much more open ended.” Indeed, Philips Design believes that there exists more than one set future, “there are different possible futures, including preferable or desirable futures”

Furthermore the article explains the strong value of (qualitative) foresighting as an exploration and orientation tool as well as the human-centredness of their approach.

In an artistically and technologically fascinating way, the Khronos Projector, developed by Alvaro Cassinelli and his colleagues at the Ishikawa-Namiki-Komuro Lab at Tokyo University, allows one to travel through time within moving imagery. By touching a deformable projection screen, one is able to move parts of the image forward or backwards in time. Space and time become mixed.

In a more practical, yet perhaps less artistic way, think of time for a minute not as video timestamps but as physical time. It could lead to fascinating interactive applications of the khronos projector (in slightly modified form) in the area of future exploration and participatory foresight. At Pantopicon, we often take clients on a trip through time to give them a look and feel of the dynamics of time, velocity of change etc. (see Time Inspiration Journey). Imagine standing in front of the Khronos Projector and watching the camera walk down your street. By touching your neighbour’s house, you see it morph into the house that used to be there before. In terms of making people experience the future in a nearly physical way, it would mean you shift forward in time and see part of what the future scenario holds for the space where your neighbour’s house is located now.

Endless possibilities …

Futurist and trendwatcher, Dr. James Canton, CEO of the Institute for Global Futures, (and student of futurist Alvin Toffler) has published a new book titled: ‘The extreme future: the top trends that will reshape the world for the next 5, 10 and 20 years’.

Publishers Weekly writes the following:

“[...] Taken individually, none of the trends Canton believes will shape the upcoming decades are surprising: major crises brought on by energy shortages and climate change; economic transformation wrought by globalization; and the “war on terror” has barely started. But he recognizes that the future is created by a “convergence” in which these developments interact. [...]“

Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
(Via Amazon)

This underlines once again the added value of an integrative, scenario-based approach to future thinking, instead of reasoning purely in terms of the extrapolation of trends.

Several sites (1,2) the past few days have referred to the ‘The future of the internet II‘ report recently published by the Pew Internet & American life project (summary). The study surveyed about 750 people on their views and expectations on the evolution of the Internet with a timehorizon of 2020. Comments have been uttered about the fears and expectations being heavily scifi-induced or scifi-oriented.
From a futures studies perspective, one might be curious and wonder about the outcome of this study in case it would have been set up as a participatory scenario analysis instead of as a survey (based on a wider cultural spread of participants, with a more diverse set of themes, perspectives, impacts on and of the internet and its nature, etc.).
Perhaps more interesting than the survey itself is their site ‘Imagining the Internet, a history and forecast‘ where people can share their views on the future of the internet, featuring some interesting visions, dreams, fears, etc.

(image: CAIDA’s Walrus visualization tool; to explore the fascinating world of cyberspace cartography further, check out Martin Dodge’s site)