candy 2014 - experiential futures
DESCRIPTION
"Experiential Futures: Stepping into OCADU’s Time Machine" is about an experiential scenarios pedagogy and assignment ("The Time Machine") developed by the author with collaborators and students mainly at OCAD University's Strategic Foresight and Innovation program, in which participants create powerful, immersive experiences of possible futures.This piece featured in The Futurist's Special Report on Futures Education in 2014.TRANSCRIPT
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Willis B. Goldbeck is an independent so-cial and economic policy consultant. He founded the Foresight Education Program in 2009 (www.foresighteducation.info). He served as chairman of the board for the In-stitute for Alternative Futures from 1998 un-til 2006.
Lisa Hasler Waters is Technology for Teaching and Learning Integrator at Flint Hill School in Northern Virginia and is a col-laborator with Willis Goldbeck’s Foresight Education Program at the Institute for Alter-native Futures. She earned her PhD in edu-cational technology from the University of Hawaii and studied futures with Dr. James Dator.
A longer version of this essay, including ref-erences, course design descriptions, and a list of schools participating in the Foresight Education program, may be found on THE FUTURIST’s Web site.
Experiential Futures: Stepping into OCADU’s Time MachineBy Stuart Candy
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Scenario: The Love MuseumThe Romancing Singapore exhibit—which runs until January 15, 2033, according to the sign—documents the astonishing and eventful recent history of love, sex, and relationships.
As you enter the Singapore Discovery Center, a docent reminds you that it is only in the past 20 years that the separate roles of Sexer and Soulmate were mandated to replace the bafflingly long-lived (and now obsolete) institution of marriage, in which these functions had always been fused.
The exhibit includes posters, newspaper reports, an educational slideshow, and video from a 24-hour news channel. Some of the most intriguing artifacts are fragments of a vanished past: Take, for instance, the con-dom, a personal device formerly needed to prevent pregnancy and sexually transmitted disease. Or the rose, which was once used by couples as a gift to symbolize their affec-tion. These days, it’s just another pretty flower.
The Center’s staff members are happy to answer the stream of questions from visitors eager to learn just how Singapore managed, in the span of a generation, to reinvent mar-riage, sex, and the family unit.
Scenario: Exploring Synthetic BiologyThree figures in white lab coats welcome you to the facility. They ask you to take a seat and turn off all devices. As a vol-unteer, you are free to withdraw at this stage, until each par-ticipant signs a three-page boilerplate agreement covering confidentiality and risk waivers. Then the clinical trial may begin.
OCAD University’s Design xBiology Lab is testing #Collexitor, a drug to remedy social-media addiction. Implants are placed carefully on your inner arm, and a medical cocktail is orally administered. The impulses that you and other participants may have to share potentially newsworthy items are then monitored. So far, the drug seems to work.
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Scenario: Collective AffluenceYou have been invited to playtest the beta version of Nousopoly: Toronto Edition.
A classic board game based on the winner-takes-all dynam-ics of capitalism has been redesigned to reflect the multiple-currency landscape of 2053. It still includes the good old dol-lar, alongside credits for attention, social influence, skill, and time. Its name is pronounced “New-opoly,” invoking not only novelty but also the French pronoun nous, meaning “we” or “us.”
Seated at tables of four to six, you and the other players readily adapt to rules built on the familiar old ones. But this version more faithfully mirrors the emerging social and eco-nomic reality. For instance, you quickly find that shared own-ership of property brings benefits to both players that indi-vidual ownership does not.
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Scenario: Media and Content CrimesTogether with 30 or so others, you are ush-ered into rows of seats in a darkened room by stern, uniformed officials. “All rise!” The Content Crimes Tribunal is now in session.
Against the backdrop of an information war, Marigold Lee has been charged with producing and distributing unapproved con-tent. Before your eyes, the prosecutor’s case is mounted, backed by alarming video evi-dence. Lee has sought to influence interna-tional audiences by peddling such subver-sive staples of “liberal” ideology as same-sex relationships and universal health care. With the nation’s very morality at stake, it is clear that Lee—and her organiza-tion, the Canadian Content Corps—must be stopped.
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Teaching the Future in a History DepartmentBy David Hochfelder, with Daniel Russo and Alexander Nassrelgrgawi
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Stuart Candy (@futuryst) is director of the Situation Lab and assistant professor of strategic foresight and innovation at OCAD University in Toronto, the world’s first aca-demic program at the intersection of futures and design, www.ocadu.ca. He holds an MA and PhD in futures studies from the Univer-sity of Hawaii at Manoa, and is a past mem-ber of the Executive Board of the World Futures Studies Federation.
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Students debrief on their Futures of Governance Time Machine project.
IMAGES COURTESY OF STUART CANDY
Another Time Machine project created a customized textbook called Thought Box to help individuals start their careers quickly.
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Futures Education Special Report