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Futurability c / Workshop model + facilitation for Split Arts Academy Interakcije 2018 Speculative Design Workshop, focussing on one of the most relevant global topics: climate change. The workshop proposes a new Futurability speculative design process to produce works for the exhibition format Local Objects of a Hyperobject.

Futurability Model
A new Speculative Design process iterated and adapted upon the often referenced Futures Cone (Extrapolation Factory / Dunne + Raby / Joseph Voros / Hancock, T. & Bezold). Reinterpreting and visualising a framework outlined by Italian theorist Franco 'Bifo' Berardi in his 2017 book Futurability - The Age of Impotence and the Horizon of Possibility. This model seeks to extend and adapt the considered remit of Speculative Design by directly addressing its relation to the 'real world' contexts of tendency, power, potency and potentiality.




Prologue: The Disaster / After The Disaster
The given workshop theme of After The Disaster is recontextualised in time and space by placing 'the disaster' firmly in the recorded past (April 1784), rather than an imagined dystopian future. This decision is intended to root the practice of speculative design as a polychronic endeavour - that is increasingly capable of tracing narratives through past, present and future. Additionally considering our current condition as post-disaster(ous) aims to actively breach the plight of Western Melancholy.




Workshop Brief
Local Objects of a Hyperobject is a means to consider, design and present work dealing with global climate change from both a local perspective and human scale. The premise is built upon philosopher Timothy Morton's theory of Hyperobjects - a thing that surrounds us, envelops and entangles us, but that is literally too big to see in its entirety, hence can only be observed as implications within highly local environments and temporalities.




Time Table
The workshop timetable reflects the #mediterraneanspeculativeapproach in both structure (9-14 / 16-19) and content (localised and humanised).




Tendency
The purpose of the workshop is to employ and interpret the practise of Speculative Design to imagine a local means to foster new, reconfigure existing or errode previous human tendencies through the objectification of a 'object of an alternative' and its localised 'real world'. The below cards represent existing tendencies which facilitate the conditions of Western Melancholy. It is these tendencies which are speculated upon through the Futurability Model.




Worksheets
Throughout the workshop tendencies are extrapolated through a series of lenses upon ecological, social, technological, political, and economic axis.








Workshop References
At key points during the workshop students will be introduced to interrelated discourse, models and methodologies.






Output Exemplification
Workshop output will be exemplified through the localisation and contextualisation of Ted Hunt's own practice.





Creative Commons Attribution:
You are invited to publish, reference or iterate this c licensed material for non-commercial purposes as long as you follow the license conditions. Below is a suggestive copy and paste attribution for this work.





ted@ted-hunt.com | @_ted_hunt |