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Our Future Is Somewhere Here
Further Reads
Explore the resources that informed the game
While playing the game, you came across several “did you know?” cards that presented some resources, theories, or inspirations. I’ve shared them with you, because they were a big part of why I created this game and those findings informed my research of “future design”. Here you can find the info cards once again with a little addition - a list of the references that stay behind all of this. Thank you for playing and for being curious!
Where WE-s emerge*
“Homophily is the mechanism by which individuals “stick” together, and “we-s” emerge", a quote by Wendy Hui Kyong Chun, a scholar who explores how media and technology shape society, identity, and politics. This phenomenon is already well blended in Western societies where, basically, the better-connected people do better in life. The main reason is that we tend to choose to communicate and exchange ideas with people who have a similar opinion to yours. However, that could result in encapsulating ourselves and creating an environment for discrimination while keeping lots of people outside of our closed circles. While on a personal level that might sound reasonable, it is quite problematic on a big scale, leading to a bigger gap between social groups. Have you experienced homophily before? In what context?
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*The title is borrowed from Wendy Hui Kyong Chun's work "Queerying Homophily".
references // You should definitely read Chun’s “Queerying Homophily”. It’s how I heard of “homophily” as a term for the first time.
citation // ★ Chun, Wendy Hui Kyong: Queerying Homophily. In: Clemens Apprich, Wendy Hui Kyong Chun, Florian Cramer u.a. (Hg.): Pattern Discrimination. Lüneburg: meson press 2018, S. 59–97. DOI: https://doi.org/10.25969/mediarep/12350.
How big is our social capital?
At least in the Western world (but not only), the concept of social capital and connectedness are vital for people to succeed in their careers. In a nutshell, the better-connected are more successful in the capitalistic context of wealth. That is why networking skills and social capital are usually desired from people in business. However, although it is generally seen as beneficial and something that fosters trust, cooperation, and access to resources, in reality, it also has many dangers and negative consequences. Such as exclusivity and inequality; social closure; corruption; and homophily.
references // Ronald S. Burt contributed significantly to the understanding of social capital with his concept of structural holes, which highlights how individuals or organisations can gain advantage by bridging gaps (or holes) between otherwise disconnected groups within a network. According to Burt, these individuals can act as brokers, benefiting from the flow of information and resources between groups, thus enhancing their social capital.
citation // ★ Burt, R.S. (1992) Structural Holes: The Social Structure of Competition. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
What we buy, we support*
Many of us feel quite overwhelmed and powerless in today’s complicated world. We feel like we cannot do much about politics, social challenges, and global crises, while the news about the next big disaster is just around the corner. However, that is not entirely true: our daily choices put a brick into building a particular scenario for the future. Big tech and businesses is a good example: our choice of software, hardware, clothes, furniture, food etc. is also our support for them - for their work ethics, labour management, and politics. "What you buy, you support" is a quote by Jorien Ketelaar that Dutch artist Floor van Meeuwen visualised in a riso-printed poster in 2022. Definitely a good daily reminder if you have it on your wall.
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*The title is borrowed by Jorien Ketelaar and Floor van Meeuwen.
further read // Have a look at my longer piece exploring this topic a little big further.
Why Big Tech is bigger than (many of) the Governments?
Do you remember your daily life without the computers? It was not so long ago, but in only around 20 years, our work and life have changed so much that most of us depend on technology (computers, smartphones, access to the Internet, and now Artificial Intelligence). Have you thought about how much energy is required for all that digital content and exchange to go flawlessly? Citing Skip Descant, “With Artificial Intelligence becoming the next big thing and all the resources being invested in it, the challenge of how to handle the problematic nature of data centres is becoming much more serious”. The usage of technology is essential to most governments, which makes them dependent on it - very often also dependent on particular tech providers and their infrastructures. For instance, while some governments are trying to make more conscious choices on how to handle energy sources, the increased need for energy by Big Tech companies is sending them back to the starting point, opening back the doors for nuclear power sources and reviving the nuclear industry.
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references // Descant is talking about the emerging need of energy for the data centres in his article. Another really interesting inspiration is Anne Pasek’s zine about data centres.
citations //
★ Descant, S. (2024). Power-Hungry Data Centers Pose a Challenge to Government. [online] GovTech. Available at: https://www.govtech.com/infrastructure/power-hungry-data-centers-pose-a-challenge-to-government [Accessed 30 Oct. 2024].
★ Pasek, Anne. “Getting Into Fights With Data Centers: Or, a Modest Proposal for Reframing the Climate Politics of ICT.” White Paper. Experimental Methods and Media Lab, Trent University, Peterborough, Ontario. July 2023. https://emmlab.info/Resources_page/Data%20Center%20Fights- _digital.pdf.
Permacomputing is a path to technological independence
This might sound familiar but not entirely? It is because it is inspired by permaculture - an agricultural and land management approach that explores and replicates processes from the surrounding natural ecosystems. It aims to reduce waste, prevent pollution, maximise sustainability, and improve the land's resiliency and biodiversity. Similarily, permacomputing is looking for ways to create an independent tech setup that uses renewable energy and stays away from any Big Tech influence. Citing permacomputing.net, "permacomputing is both a concept and a community of practice oriented around issues of resilience and regenerativity in computer and network technology inspired by permaculture". As utopian as it sounds, it is a future design concept that has many supporters. However, it is not easy to create your own independent tech setup - it requires resources, such as money and sun (if you're using solar panel) and technical skills. But small communities are a good way to start creating small independent hubs around the world.
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references // Have a look at permacomputing.net to learn more about permaculture.
Our imagination is the limit of how our future will look like
Have you thought about how our imagination is shaped? Our memories and personal experiences are at the core, especially the ones gained in our childhood when lots of our beliefs and understanding of the world are formed. While we grow up, it’s also the cultural and social context that play a significant role in how we think and imagine things - we draw a lot from stories, art, and media which give lots of narratives that stay with us for long. Of course, social connections shape our beliefs and ideas, too. But one of the strongest influences comes from our emotions - when I am anxious, I can imagine a hundred scenarios about how things can go wrong. Happily, in the end, it’s quite rare any of them come to reality. Imagining is indeed a psychological processing of all sorts of things - emotions, memories, ideas, and so on. For some people, imagining is at the core of their job and they are the ones who influence the future of the many. Can you think of such examples?
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What ways are there to imagine possible worlds?
The “possible worlds” framework is central to David Lewis’ work. He argues that the truth of a counterfactual statement depends on what happens in the most similar "possible world" to our own, where the antecedent (the "if" part) is true. Possible worlds are a way to understand how different conditions or choices could lead to different outcomes. His theory, published back in 1973, became a major tool in analysing hypothetical situations, deeply affecting how philosophers think about causation, time, and reality.
While in this game we explore possible futures using a very binary, yes-no counterfactual reasoning, we can always try to go outside of this box and create more nuanced scenarios. In the assessment round, you can adjust a building block of your common future, not only rewriting it completely. Would you like to play with that?
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references // You might like to explore more the concepts of “possible worlds”, “speculative design”, and “futuring” in the following reads:
citations //
★ Barbrook, R. (2007). Imaginary futures : from thinking machines to the global village. London: Pluto.
★ Dunne, A. and Raby, F. (2013). Speculative Everything : Design, Fiction, and Social Dreaming. Erscheinungsort Nicht Ermittelbar: Mit Press.
★ Nate Silver (2012). The Signal and the Noise : Why So Many Predictions Fail-- But Some Don’t. New York: Penguin Books.
★ O’Brien R. and Forbes A. (2021) Speculative Futuring: Learners as Experts on Their Own Futures. In: Journal of Futures Studies, December 2021,Vol. 26(2) 19–36. DOI: 10.6531/JFS.202112_26(2).0002
Exploring the game categories
In the game, there are ten categories of influence arranged in gradation. They tackle aspects of our everyday life and ask you either about your past experiences or current beliefs and understandings. I’ve chosen topics and narratives that I find quite common in my context and wanted to invite the players to reflect on them. The game focuses on things that really affect the way we live and plays with concepts from real life.
However, the game is also extremely simplified in order to fit in this small limitation - the statements have only Yes/No answers, while in reality, the world is much more complex. Thus, I would like to invite you to see this game as a bubble we are exploring with a possible alternative modular future we are creating as a group.
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references // The game was inspired by many sources. The intersection between our personal experiences and data predictions came to live after a diffractive reading exercises I did (invitation by my then-tutor Femke Snelting) - the two pieces I “read diffractively” were “Queerying Homophily” by Wendy Hui Kyong Chun and Conversations with Edouard Glissant, a documentary from 2010.
I am also extremely fascinated by future scenarios explored in stories. For instance, “Extrapolations” (2023) is a TV-series antology that explores potential future scenarios based on data.
To design the game, I was strongly inspired by Commonspoly - a non-profit, open source board game that encourages a culture of cooperation and questions the violent model of neoliberal privatisation. During that time, I also participated in Alexia Achilleos’ workshops that were part of her PhD research. The first one I attended, was the AI Colonialism Board Game - a collaborative artist game (a board game with an artistic intent), that aims to raise awareness of AI’s societal impact and power dynamics on a local, Cypriot level and thus contribute to AI literacy amongst the inhabitants of Cyprus.
citations //
★ Achilleos, A. (2023-2024). AI Colonialism Board Game.
★ Chun, Wendy Hui Kyong: Queerying Homophily. In: Clemens Apprich, Wendy Hui Kyong Chun, Florian Cramer u.a. (Hg.): Pattern Discrimination. Lüneburg: meson press 2018, S. 59–97. DOI: https://doi.org/10.25969/mediarep/12350.
★ Commonspoly. (2020). (https://commonspoly.cc/)
★ Conversations with Edouard Glissant (2010). Documentary
★ Extrapolations. (2023). Apple TV+.
★ Flanagan, M. (2009). Critical play : radical game design. Cambridge Ma: Mit Press.
★ Graeber, D. and Wengrow, D. (2021). The dawn of everything : a new history of humanity. London: Penguin Books.
★ Lewis, D. (1973). Counterfactuals. Harvard University Press.
★ Sohie, C. (2023). Speculative Futures: Design for Change. In: Hilal, S., Bedir, M., Ramsgaard Thomsen, M., Tamke, M. (eds) Design for Partnerships for Change. UIA 2023. Sustainable Development Goals Series. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-36993-3_19