As American philosopher Susan Sontag – among others – reminded us, there is no neutral way to picture reality. The photographer’s eye and his mind’s eye’s point of view through which he/she looks at reality is always in the middle, directing gaze, adding interpretation to a seemingly – but only seemingly – ‘objective’ act of perception. Different perspectives, different intentions, different interpretations … the wealth of the eye.

Digital photography has exploded the amount of pictures taken around the world. Social media have brought them together, now what? Recreating reality ? Creating alternative realities? Microsoft developed Photosynth, but now the image gurus at Adobe have also joined the race to the next visual killer app.

Inspired by Bladerunner tech envisionments, Shai Avidan, joined by MIT’s Bill Freeman, recently showcased Adobe’s new Infinite Images technology at their MAX Europe conference in Milan (MAX blog). Check out the video as well as John Nack’s post here.

In 1975 Ernest Callenbach published Ecotopia (revisited by NY Times here), a novel which quickly gained cult status (see also video). Three years later, fascinated by the book, architect Craig Hodgetts (of Hodgetts+Fung Design) crafted a set of amazing drawings depicting some of the scenes and concept envisioned in the book, eager to produce Ecotopia for the big screen. Imagine retro-yet-ever-so-futuristic balloon generators over San Francisco Bay, solar-powered high-speed mag-lev trains, helium-filled mylar balloons to lift and orient a wind-powered generator, …

Callenbach said it right: “It is so hard to imagine anything fundamentally different from what we have now, but without these alternate visions, we get stuck on dead center.” 

Inspired by TheArchitectsNewspaperBlog

Do you dream about flying hydrogen cars – even though they are so yesterday?! – sustainable cities, social cohesion services, gracefully degrading packaging etc. at least once a day? Are you fascinated by the many opportunities and challenges that tomorrow’s world(s) might bring? Do you have strong design(er) DNA which makes you think with both head and hands: analytically, conceptually, visually and tangibly?

Then you might be the futures designer we at Pantopicon are looking for to join us in our mission to help public and private organizations explore and envision successful futures, to inspire, guide and transform them, propel them forward towards greater strategies, products, services etc. …

Help us shape the future, join our team. Check out our careers page.

PS. Looking for a traineeship? Click through as well.

At the inspiring Venice Architecture Biennale - this year’s edition curated by Aaron Betsky, former director of the NaI – the famous Dutch design studio Droog Design & KesselsKramer showcase S1NGLETOWN. 

S1NGLETOWN focuses on the world of contemporary singles. Its relevance is broad, as all of us are likely to belong to this group at some stage in our lives — and likely more than once. In fact, some sources predict that a third of people in developed countries will be living alone by 2026.

S1NGLETOWN is an exhibition that’s also a town, an abstract interpretation of a new kind of urban space. Visitors will be able to walk its streets and interact with its products and citizens, and view their homes.

The concept is a beautiful illustration of a persona-like approach, typecasting different types of singles and imaginatively describe their world, ways of living using their point of experience as a point of departure. Although designed in a beautiful, powerful yet fairly abstract way, one is fully immersed in this ‘view on the world’ being able to walk around in S1NGLETOWN through an exhibition.

Within the ‘Foresight tackling obesities’ project, which we blogged about earlier, our friends over at Shiftn created an amazing map depicting the forcefield surrounding obesity. Congrats Philippe & Co.! 

The causal loop map provides systemic insight into the wide variety of factors influencing the obesity epidemic. A thorough analysis of about 40 science reviews led to the identification of 108 drivers of obesity, interrelated through positive and negative effects.

Reflecting on the potential of maps like these: a next step of increasing the interactivity of the map could further enhance its value as an information insight or what-if tool. For example, select a relationship arrow and see what the relationship stands for. Or furthermore … select a few drivers, confirm or alter the parameters of their cause-effect relationship, push the action button and see what happens. Or … describe an effect (wishful or to avoid) and see which buttons need to be triggered in order to change the outcome as mentioned. In other words: the map, as an information visualization tool, can be a first step toward a full-fledged knowledge tool.

Across the Atlantic, the Ten Year Forecast Team of the IFTF recently published a future map laying out the various developments related to sustainability in view of the coming decade, for their client, the Global Environmental Management Initiative (GEMI). Think: slums as centres of innovation, rogue eco-states, collaborative eco-mapping, bioteaming, biohacking, biocommons, environmental defense forces, deep localism, distributed energy, etc.

Get the map and dive right in. There’s a wealth of information up for inspiration, interpretation and innovation for all.

Our friend and Berlin-Based-Belgian-Blogger Regine over at wemakemoneynotart recently hosted a panel on Cartography of Protest and Social Changes at Conflux 2008. “The panel was an attempt to demonstrate that maps have the potential to bring about social changes.” Check out her blogpost for some fascinating examples of “mapping for social change”.

Although maps are often portrayed as an objective spatial basis on which to ‘map’ data, they are always about perspective and the change of it: which country is in the center, where does most projection-distortion occur, which colours are used, … As tools of communication, they can easily become tools of manipulation, allowing one to lie with maps as easily as with statistics. Yet, put in a positive sense they can convey and enhance complex messages in a powerful visual way and shift people’s perspective on even abstract developments through spatial contextualization.

As such, Buckminster Fuller’s Dymaxion Map is a famous example of a map, specifically devised to minimize distortion caused by projection. In its modular form it is a powerful tool to shift perspectives on the world and assess developments from a variety of angles.

Related to maps as tools for thought or insight, there are of course also the cartograms. We blogged about them before as a powerful means to visualize information otherwise obscured by statistics or illegible, unattractive text. Some of you might have played around with Show/World as well, an online tool which allows you to create your own cartogram-like maps (within a limited range of dataparameters).

Guy Pieters Gallery in the coastal town of Knokke-Heist, Belgium, is currently (May 11th until June 2nd) host to a fascinating exhibition by the artist Jacques Charlier, entitled ‘Art in Another Way’.

Charlier, born in Liège (B) in 1939, masters a wide range of media, yet turned to good ol’ painting for this specific exhibition, which projects developments in current day culture and society into the future. Scenes in vivid colours against the night’s sky and with stars and planets as main actors, picture worlds many years ahead. The present and the future meet in clever ways on Charlier’s canvas, in what some might dub a retrofuturistic style.

Gene therapy, RFID, human cloning, climate change, teleportation, space travel, the year 4958, black holes, Planck’s wall, android love affairs, … they all play a part in Charlier’s artistic future(s) explorations.

For those of you in the neighbourhood, go check it out, it’s worth it!

PS. Don’t be fooled by the fact that all works are signed 2007. The artist envisioned and has been working on the exhibition as a whole for many years. He added the final touch to all the works in 2007, hence the signature date.

Konstfack, the Swedish University College of Arts, Crafts and Design, ran an exhibition at the Gallerian shopping mall in Stockholm recently, exploring the future of shopping entitled … FutureShopping. Guided by Design United’s Christine Hedström and Professor of Interdisciplinary Studies Ronald Jones 13 students showcased their exploration of the future of shopping from the perspective of the consumption of luxury goods. The project also featured a seminar on the theme with guest speakers from areas such as design, branding, marketing, strategy etc.

“By studying research material and using trend analysis the students have worked around the changing consumptions patterns in the future and also come up with an answer to the question; What is luxury in 20 years?”

Via DesignBoost and StockholmFashionDays

Change often starts with a ripple before it turns into a wave washing over us. Spotting signals of change early – when they are still murmur on the sideline – often means a strategic advantage, if one can interpret the signal correctly, anticipate and act upon it successfully.

We dive into the world of weak signals together with Elina Hiltunen, a Finnish weak signals hunter and discuss both theory and practice in this fascinating realm of futures studies.

Elina was also one of the keynote speakers at the European Futurists Conference in Lucerne last October. (more…)

Design consultancy Frog design showcases their concept for the future of personal healthcare entitled Aura. The concept breathes core values such as simplicity, tranquillity, lightness, calmness, poetry etc.

Aura was modelled against a backdrop shaped by trends such as an ageing population, the shift from remediation to prevention,  a multidisciplinary (mind-body) but also more holistic approach to healthcare (Western & alternative) etc.

“Much of life is composed of daily routine: brushing your teeth, washing your face, preparing your meals. Once learned, such routines can offer more than the practical benefits; they can help people center their lives, providing a small assurance of simplicity within a rapidly changing world. Many cultures have traditional, repetition-based tools with which to meet the uncertainties of the world at large: Zen gardens, calligraphy, yoga massage. All treat the body and soul as one, using physical motion or non-motion to focus the mind. The Aura taps into this tradition in a new way, focusing the mind while examining the body to promote a holistic model of individual health.”

Aura combines monitoring, therapeutic and security modes of personal health care.
The monitoring ritual consists of looking into a bowl and humming. In the meantime Aura performs facial, saliva and voice scans to monitor mood, health, tension levels/fatigue etc. Through the touching of a semi-soft sculptural form the user’s skin, blood, heartrate, temperature etc. are monitored. Colour, sound, scent and vibrations give feedback to the senses: informative, yet also therapeutic, since they influence physical and psychological health. Moving a white chime mallet across the edge of the bowl makes images, forms, colours, etc. appear in the vessel. The user can control what appears, yet the device also learns which items aid in positively influencing a person’s mood, physical or psychological state. Repeated usage over longer periods of time allow Aura to provide security, by learning about and keeping an eye on the user’s personal health and advert him/her of problems or warn medical professional straight away when necessary.

The whole february issue of their design mind blog/zine is focussed on health, btw. Sit back and enjoy a fascinating read!

In the recently released scifi movie Jumper, a young man is able to teleport himself from one place to another in the blink of an eye. Hollywood publicist Warren Betts organized an evening putting on stage director Doug Liman and actor Hayden Christensen to meet & discuss with MIT physics professors Dr. Max Tegmark and Dr. Edward Fahri.

In physics teleportation stands for the transfer of quantum states from one atom to another. No Star Trek ‘Beam me up, Scotty’ yet, though progress is being made at the atomic level.

“Dr. Tegmark said that even inaccurate science fiction movies could inspire scientists to think. You could see something that you think is impossible, he said, but that might start you thinking. “Why is that impossible? It can trigger a train of thought,” he said.”

This resonates somehow with Nicolas‘ line ‘I do really prefer reading sci-fi, instead of so-called “futurists”.’ a while ago. The element of plot, narrative, the immersion & the engagement factor etc. are all elements central to the different way in which people deal with information differently when presented as an experience vs. as a rational series of info/data to process. Different kinds of triggers and carrier waves lie at the basis of different trains of thought.

Via The New York Times

Part two of our 2057 coverage. This time: 2057, the city. We bathe in datastreams as we walk through our city. Cars, streets & clothing exchange data around the clock and act intelligently to support us in whatever we do.

Read on … (more…)

We already signaled you the BBC documentary Visions of the future. Now, physicist and futurologist Michio Kaku takes us on another voyage into the fascinating world of possible tomorrows. This time, in a coproduction between Gruppe 5 ZDF and Discovery Channel (visual effects by 422 South), three stories are told set in the year 2057, each addressing a different scale level: the world, the city, the body. The videos combine a tech-inspired, integrated view of the future by means of a storyline, with documentary style lab-visits with scientists & engineers and their inventions.

It is probably because the series is aimed at a broad audience, that the storyline appears to serve as a binding element between the flashes about technological developments, rather than as a deeper, more integrated rendering of a future scenario. Storyline and acting clearly take a secondary position compared to the technological developments themselves.

We saw the episode, filtered out and put together the links to most of the science and tech projects mentioned (and added some of our own). Stay tuned for more news from 2057. (more…)

Lack of space? Go down underground (see also here). With the AMFORA project – Dutch acronym for Alternative Multifunctional Underground Space Amsterdam – Strukton and architectural office Zwarts & Jansma envisions a second cityspace below Amsterdam’s canals. Pricetag: around 10bn €.

“Through a system of underground spaces with entry and exit points along Amsterdam’s A10 ring road, a range of underground facilities can be created at various levels below the city. To name but a few of the many options, these could include parking garages, sports facilities, cinemas, cables and ducts, and supply facilities. The plan devotes a great deal of attention to the underground experience and architecture. Space, safety and sound orientation are central elements. [...] It is both feasible and sustainable. Creating a city beneath the city is not futuristic, it is a necessity in this day and age.”

Image by Strukton, click here for more.