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The Thing From The Future (APF Compass Methods Anthology)

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Abstract

A methodological article describing the first edition of the award-winning experiential futures, imagination and creativity card game “The Thing From The Future”, designed by Stuart Candy and Jeff Watson and published by Situation Lab. This piece appeared as part of the Association of Professional Futurists (APF) Methods Anthology, a special issue of the periodical Compass, edited by Andrew Curry. It later served as the basis for a chapter in the 2018 collection “Transforming the Future”, published by Routledge and UNESCO, and edited by Riel Miller: <researchgate.net/publication/312016855>. A free, open access version of The Thing From The Future (1st ed.) can be downloaded here: <researchgate.net/publication/364677670>.
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18 APF Compass | Methods Anthology 2015
Over the past decade there
has been a surge of activity at the
intersection of futures and design.1 The
term Experiential Futures refers to the
gamut of approaches involving the design
of situations and stu from the future to
catalyse insight and change.2 With the
maturation of this practice come new
frameworks and tools that promise to
make operating in this vast and still
relatively unexplored design space easier
than it has been to date.
The Thing From The Future oers one
such framework. It is a card game that
scaolds imagination, strategic
conversation and storytelling about
possible futures. One part scenario
generator, one part design tool, and one
part party game, it lets players collaborate
and compete to describe, sketch, and even
physically prototype artifacts that might
exist in alternative futures, based on a
wide array of creative prompts.
Co-designed by the author, a professor
in Strategic Foresight and Innovation at
OCAD University, and Je Watson, a
professor in the University of Southern
California's School of Cinematic Arts, the
game was published in March 2014 by
Situation Lab, which the two jointly run
from Toronto and Los Angeles.
Here is how it works. There
are 108 cards in the deck, in four
categories or suits, to kindle and guide
players' imaginations. The suits are Arc
(the applicable time horizon and type of
future, building on Jim Dator’s framework
of four generic futures3), Terrain (the
context for the object), Object (the
hypothetical “future thing” for which
players will generate a description, ranging
from Device, to Headline, to Monument),
and Mood (how it feels to interact with
that thing, lending an “interior” inflection
to the other three more external
elements). Either alone or in a group,
players can make a creative prompt by
combining any set of four cards from each
suit.
A prompt oers the requisite "enabling
constraints,” in Katherine Hayles’ phrase,
for a player to describe a specific cultural
fragment from a possible future. Just as
history leaves behind innumerable traces
––in attics, museums, and other treasure
troves––and these can speak volumes
about what has happened in the past, the
card deck is intended to help players to
imagine evidence from the countless
scenarios that could happen.
The artifact generation process is a sort
of “reverse archaeology”4: whereas from a
found artifact, an archaeologist infers the
world that produced it, here, one
creatively infers a specific artifact from a
brief description of “the world”.
The “artifact from the
future” conceit dates back at least as
far as Wired magazine’s long-running
back-page feature “Found” (ca. 2002-2013),
but also finds precedents in work at
Institute for the Future by Jason Tester
The Thing From The Future
by Stuart Candy
Stuart Candy, Ph.D. (@futuryst) is a
pioneer of experiential futures for
strategy, education, activism, and
entertainment. The Thing From the
Future is available from
www.situationlab.org
Prompt and Playsheet from World Future Society Conference, San Francisco, July 2015. Photos by Stuart
Candy, unless otherwise stated.
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APF Compass | Methods Anthology 2015!19
and others; in Jake Dunagan and Stuart
Candy’s FoundFutures initiative; and not
least, in the accelerated spread over the
past five years of popular futures-inflected
design practices, including design fiction5
and speculative design6.
In its first eighteen months The Thing
From The Future has had a productive
career. It has been used as the ideation
engine for several “speculative design
jams” (mostly in collaboration with New
York design collective The Extrapolation
Factory), where we facilitated participants
in generating artifact ideas through
gameplay, then helped them bring these to
life. Outcomes have included popup
design fiction shows, such as street
merchandise from the future made at New
York University and put up for sale on the
corner of Canal St and Broadway in
Manhattan; and an exhibition about
future live music performances, created by
Stanford d.School students and mounted
at the Tech Museum of Innovation in San
Jose.
The game was also an Ocial Selection
at international games festival IndieCade
2014. It has been played by thousands of
people worldwide in settings ranging from
the United Nations Development
Programme’s Annual Strategy Meeting in
New York City, to NESTA’s FutureFest in
London; the Asia Pacific Foresight
Network conference in Taiwan; the
Toronto Maker Festival; Amplify
Innovation Festival in Sydney; the
IRAHSS symposium in Singapore; and the
5D Institute’s transmedia storytelling
event “The Science of Fiction” in Los
Angeles.
Generating ideas for physical
things is just the beginning. Originally the
Object suit focused on small-scale,
tangible items such as Wallet, Postcard,
and Toy. This reflected the game’s origins
as a tool created for the first
“Futurematic”, where participants filled a
vending machine with future artifacts
produced in a single day using the game as
the ideation engine. In the revised edition,
released October 2014, “Object” expanded
to encompass other forms of cultural
output, such as Ritual, Festival, and
Building.
The game has been
likened to Oblique Strategies, Brian
Eno and Peter Schmidt’s creativity-
boosting card deck from the 1970s, as well
as to the Kickstarter phenomenon, Cards
Against Humanity. It has been covered by
media ranging from Forbes to Discovery
Channel to La Repubblica. Part of the
reason for this widespread interest may lie
in the game’s flexibility: it turns out to
serve equally well as a group icebreaker,
ideation engine, and imagination gym.
In mid-2015 The Thing From The
Future was recognised by the Association
of Professional Futurists as a Most
Significant Futures Work in the
methodology category. But how does it
actually work––what does this game bring
to the table, so to speak?
Certainly the generative card deck is
not a new phenomenon. One can find
numerous antecedents ancient and
modern, from tarot and playing cards, to a
parade of more recent creations with
generative properties, including IDEO’s
Method Cards, Art Center College of
Design’s Mobility VIP, and Near Future
Laboratory’s Design Fiction Kit.7
Still, the design of The Thing From The
Future may be especially relevant to the
foresight community as an encapsulated
Futurematic” vending machine installed at OCAD
University, Toronto, after the game’s first
deployment, March 2014
Playing a film-themed version of the game at Hot
Docs documentary film festival, Canada, April
2014. Photo by Joseph Michael Howarth, courtesy
of Hot Docs.
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20 APF Compass | Methods Anthology 2015
methodology because it tackles something
that to date has tended to be a specialist
task (generating ideas for future artifacts),
and makes that task easier.
Having served for a time as an advisor to
editor Chris Baker on Wired’s “artifacts
from the future” I can attest to the
challenge of generating new ideas from
scratch every month.
Similarly, not long after he successfully
crowdfunded (but was yet to start writing)
his book A History of the Future in 100
Objects,8 I met with Adrian Hon in early
2011 and suggested that devising
satisfactory descriptions for that many
future artifacts might take longer than the
single year he expected at the time. (In
fact, Hon managed the feat in about two
and a half years, which is still an excellent
eort!) With a playful structure to scaold
imagination (or “choreograph attention” as
creativity consultant Edward de Bono
might say), such thinking can become
faster, more systematic, and more
accessible.
To get technical for a
moment, The Thing From The
Future exemplifies what my co-designer
Je Watson calls a combinatorial
prompting system.
The deck’s possibilities are practically
inexhaustible, with dozens of options in
each of the four suits multiplying out, in
the revised edition, to yield over 3.7
million permutations, any of which could
inspire countless artifact ideas.
The key to its generative potential is in
the relationship between the deck’s four
suits. It is a typology splitting the
attributes of a future artifact into three
complementary levels of abstraction that
the player is oered as disparate elements
to synthesise. These are the macro (type of
scenario; Arc), meso (geographic or
thematic area of interest; Terrain), and
micro (the unit of cultural output, and
focal point of the description you create;
Object), and an interior state (Mood). In
each round of gameplay, then, it could be
said that player is descending a sort of
“abstraction ladder”, a notion I have
adapted from linguist S.I. Hayakawa and
developed into a design aid called the
Experiential Futures Ladder.9
Here the climb is a rapid descent from
high-level, abstract descriptors of possible
futures––Grow, Collapse, Discipline,
Transform––to multiple ground-level ideas
for future artifacts expressing this grand
narrative premise, and that often invite
further exploration of a longer story en
route. (In terms of the Experiential
Futures Ladder, players move quickly from
broad “Settings” down to specific “Stu”,
in such a way as to invite further
exploration in the narrative-rich middle
rungs of “Scenario” or “Situation”.) The
Mood card brings in an unusual generative
parameter, an emotional spin on the rest
of the prompt that helps take gameplay
out of mere thought-experiment territory
and into a more resonant register.
Happily, a player need not
know or worry about such details in
order to play, much as one need not
understand precisely how an internal
combustion engine works in order to drive
a car safely to any number of destinations.
The playful interface of a card game may
conceal considerable complexity. Indeed,
the oer of The Thing From The Future as
a method could be said to consist in the
way its design and storytelling engine
works, mostly unseen, “under the hood”.
The power to scaold coherent prompts
in large numbers depends on what might
be called typological complementarity,
where all members of each card category
are conceptually compatible with all the
others.
Another way to state this in relation to
futures methods that the deck provides a
Artifact created as part of Futurematic: Canal
Street, New York, June 2014
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APF Compass | Methods Anthology 2015!21
means of exploring a combinatorial
possibility space that is similar to
morphological analysis, but a lot less
scary10. While this may be at first a near-
invisible (and admittedly pretty geeky)
aspect of the game’s design, the result is
that, without great eort, players can
engage in quite a sophisticated form of
integrative, imaginative thinking,
embedding abstract future-narrative
notions in particular concepts for future
things––all while actually enjoying
themselves.
Continual feedback helps
to refine the game's contents, and
extension sets or “Hackpacks” have also
been created by Situation Lab to adapt the
game for various audiences. Typically it
does not take long for players and
facilitators to get how the suits work, from
which point it is straightforward for them
to augment or adjust the contents, leaning
exploration into specific subterritories in
the future’s vast and ever-expanding cone
of possibilities. Ultimately, those who
grasp this structure may find themselves
equipped with an infinitely extensible,
customisable, layered way of using their
imagination, with or without cards in
hand.
The Thing From The Future (or
#FutureThing on social media) has already
generated a variety of narrative and
making activity that cuts across the
futures, design, gaming and transmedia
storytelling communities, and it looks set
to continue enabling surprising
conversations and creations. Experiential
Futures, it would appear, is going
mainstream. All of this is an encouraging
sign that designing playfulness into our
professional practice as futurists, without
sacrificing rigour, can help foresight have
greater impact by making it more
accessible––as well as more fun.
First published, Quarter 2, 2015,
and revised for this anthology.
References
1. See T. Haldenby and S. Candy, 2014, ‘The Age Of
Imagination: A History of Experiential Futures
2006-2031.’ ACM CHI Conference on Human Factors
in Computing Systems, Toronto; S. Candy and J.
Dunagan, ‘Co-Creating an Experiential Scenario,
Futures, forthcoming; and Journal of Futures
Studies, 2012, vol. 17, no. 1, “Special Edition on the
Communication of Foresight”.
2. S. Candy, 2010, The Futures of Everyday Life
(Doctoral dissertation). Honolulu: University of
Hawai’i
3. J. Dator, 2009, ‘Alternative Futures at the Mānoa
School’. Journal of Futures Studies, November
2009, 14(2): 1-18.
4. S. Candy, 2013, ‘Time Machine / Reverse
Archaeology: Create an experience or artifact from
the future.’ Seventy-two Assignments: The
Foundation Course in Art and Design Today. Ed.
Chloe Briggs. Paris: PCA Press, p. 28.
5. J. Bleecker, 2009, ‘Design Fiction: A short essay
on design, science, fact and fiction.’ Los Angeles:
Near Future Laboratory; B. Sterling, 2013, ‘Patently
untrue: fleshy defibrillators and synchronised
baseball are changing the future.’ Wired UK,
October 11.
6. James Auger, 2012, Why Robot? Speculative
design, the domestication of technology and the
considered future (Doctoral thesis). London: Royal
College of Art; Anthony Dunne and Fiona Raby,
2013, Speculative Everything: Design, Fiction, and
Social Dreaming. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
7. IDEO, n.d., Method Cards; Art Center College of
Design, n.d., Mobility Vision Integration Process;
Near Future Laboratory, n.d., Design Fiction Product
Design Work Kit. See also TFTF co-designer Jeff
Watson’s 2012 doctoral dissertation, Reality Ends
Here, based on a combinatorial prompting game to
help aspiring filmmakers create more diverse
student films.
8. Adrian Hon, 2013, A History of the Future in 100
Objects. Newbold on Stour, Warks: Skyhook/
Skyscraper Publications.
9. See K. Kornet and S. Candy, ‘Ethnographic
Experiential Futures’, Futures, forthcoming.
10. Tom Ritchey, 2009, ‘Morphological analysis’, in
J.C. Glenn and T.J. Gordon (Eds), Futures Research
Methodology (CD-ROM version 3.0). Washington,
DC: The Millennium Project.
Playsheet from Toronto Maker Festival launch party, July 2015
ResearchGate has not been able to resolve any citations for this publication.
Chapter
Full-text available
EXF is a framework for hybrid design/futures research and practice that is all about making images of the future more legible and concrete and seeing what one can learn from doing so. Rather than being dreamt up from scratch, it originated in a pattern identified as underpinning multiple projects previously undertaken by futurists, designers, and researchers with diverse investigation and engagement objectives in mind. It offers a practical structure and set of prompts for devising projects and interventions with a view to promoting the availability of a more diverse and deeper array of scenarios for consideration, in all sorts of contexts, and ultimately in service of developing a social capacity for foresight. This piece is adapted for the new edition of the Knowledge Base of Futures Studies, published Summer 2020, at the invitation of editors Richard Slaughter and Andy Hines. It first appeared in 2019 as a peer-reviewed article, "Turning Foresight Inside Out", in the Journal of Futures Studies special double issue on Design and Futures edited by Stuart Candy and Cher Potter: <researchgate.net/publication/338129083>.
Thesis
Full-text available
One of the enduring objects used to represent the technological future is the robot. This legacy means that its promise has the ability to evolve in accordance with our societal and cultural dreams and aspirations. It can reflect the current state of technological development, our hopes for that technology and also our fears; fundamentally though, after almost a century of media depictions and corporate promises, the robot is yet to enter our homes and lives in any meaningful way. This thesis begins by asking the question: how does an emerging technology (such as robotic) become a domestic product? In addressing this issue I draw from the theory of domestication and the method of speculative design to describe three possible technological journeys: how technology does not, does and could become a domestic product: 1. Technology does not make the transition from laboratory to domestic life. Robots have made countless departures from the habitat of the research laboratory, apparently headed towards the domestic habitat, but the vast majority never arrive. This observation leads to the identification of a third habitat and the current destination for the majority of proposed domestic robots – robot-related imaginaries. In this theatre-like environment, robots exist as either promises or warnings of a potential technological future. The habitat includes technology fairs, laboratory open houses, news articles and the films and novels of science fiction. I conclude by suggesting reasons why these visions of the future so often fail to become domestic products. 2. Technology does make the transition from laboratory to domestic life. Borrowing from the science of ecology and biological concepts of evolution and domestication, I make an analogy between the shift of habitats that occurs when an organism successfully goes through the process of artificial selection (natural to domestic) and the transition an emerging technology makes in order to become a suitable product for domestic use (laboratory to domestic). 3. How technology could make the transition from laboratory to domestic life. This section makes up the core of the thesis as I describe speculative design and how it can be used to present more plausible depictions of near-future technological applications. By stepping out of the normative relationship that ties technological development to commercial markets, speculative design opens a space for alternative perspectives, critical reflection and an examination of contemporary and near-future technological application. Throughout the thesis these theoretical investigations run parallel to the practice-based element, allowing for interplay between the two. This resulted in three projects that exemplify the speculative design approach applied to robots, inviting dialogue and contemplation on what a preferable robotic future might be.
Chapter
Full-text available
An experiential futures / design fiction brief for teachers and students of art, design, and foresight to create an experience or artifact from the future.
Article
Full-text available
This essay explains and illustrates how the Hawaii Research Center for Futures Studies of the Political Science Department of the University of Hawaii at Manoa conceives of and uses "alternative futures". The design and conduct of a "futures visioning process," of which experiencing "four generic alternative futures" (continuation, collapse, discipline, transformation) and envisioning preferred futures are essential parts, is described in some detail.
Book
Imagining the history of the twenty-first century through its artifacts, from silent messaging systems to artificial worlds on asteroids. In the year 2082, a curator looks back at the twenty-first century, offering a history of the era through a series of objects and artifacts. He reminisces about the power of connectivity, which was reinforced by such technologies as silent messaging—wearable computers that relay subvocal communication; recalls the Fourth Great Awakening, when a regimen of pills could make someone virtuous; and notes disapprovingly the use of locked interrogation, which delivers “enhanced interrogation” simulations via virtual reality. The unnamed curator quotes from a self-help guide to making friends with “posthumans,” describes the establishment of artificial worlds on asteroids, and recounts pro-democracy movements in epistocratic states. In A New History of the Future in 100 Objects, Adrian Hon constructs a possible future by imagining the things it might leave in its wake. Many of these things are just an update or two away: improved ankle monitors, for example, and deliverbots. Others may be the logical conclusions of current trends—“downvote” networks that identify and erase undesirables, and Glyphish, an emoticon-based language that supersedes the written word. More benign are Braid Collective, which provides financial support for artists, and Rechartered Cities, which invites immigrants to revitalize urban areas hollowed out by changing demographics. With this engaging and ingenious work, Hon leads the way into an imagined future while offering readers a new perspective on the present.
The Futures of Everyday Life (Doctoral dissertation)
  • S Candy
S. Candy, 2010, The Futures of Everyday Life (Doctoral dissertation). Honolulu: University of Hawai'i
Los Angeles: Near Future Laboratory; B. Sterling, 2013, 'Patently untrue: fleshy defibrillators and synchronised baseball are changing the future
  • J Bleecker
J. Bleecker, 2009, 'Design Fiction: A short essay on design, science, fact and fiction.' Los Angeles: Near Future Laboratory; B. Sterling, 2013, 'Patently untrue: fleshy defibrillators and synchronised baseball are changing the future.' Wired UK, October 11.
Mobility Vision Integration Process; Near Future Laboratory, n.d., Design Fiction Product Design Work Kit. See also TFTF co-designer Jeff Watson's 2012 doctoral dissertation, Reality Ends Here, based on a combinatorial prompting game to help aspiring filmmakers create more diverse student films
  • N D Ideo
  • Method Cards
IDEO, n.d., Method Cards; Art Center College of Design, n.d., Mobility Vision Integration Process; Near Future Laboratory, n.d., Design Fiction Product Design Work Kit. See also TFTF co-designer Jeff Watson's 2012 doctoral dissertation, Reality Ends Here, based on a combinatorial prompting game to help aspiring filmmakers create more diverse student films.
Morphological analysis
  • Tom Ritchey
Tom Ritchey, 2009, 'Morphological analysis', in J.C. Glenn and T.J. Gordon (Eds), Futures Research Methodology (CD-ROM version 3.0). Washington, DC: The Millennium Project.