To what degree can we shape our futures here and now? To what extent are our futures shaped by governments, technology companies, and other players?
»Hello, hello Future! Exploring tomorrow today« was a half-day participatory programme which took place in cooperation with Die Neue Sammlung – The Design Museum in Munich. UnDesignUnit developed the new format »Future-Making-Lab – Shaping Our Futures Ourselves!« where participants explored in interdisciplinary exchange with each other which social, economic, political and ecological implications the use of drones might have. Assuming that the future is rooted in the present, they conceived, built, explored and tested alternative scenarios to predominant designs for the future based on critical and speculative design methods.
The lab was conceived and hosted by UnDesignUnit, and the results were presented in form of mock-ups and models in the presence of designer Fiona Raby. The lab’s intention was to explore the ambivalent relationship between present day and future, between pre-fabricated visions of the future and our own imagination, and to investigate the role which design might play in speculating about possible futures.
Following the lab, Fiona Raby held her lecture »Who Else Makes Our Futures?«. The designer and professor at The New School in New York talked about the power of imagination, fiction, alternative realities and the values designed into everyday objects. Fiona Raby is a partner at the design studio Dunne & Raby and, together with Anthony Dunne, co-author of »Design Noir. The Secret Life of Electronic Objects« (Birkhäuser, 2001) and »Speculative Everything. Design, Fiction and Social Dreaming« (MIT Press, 2013).
The event was funded by bayern design and the Bavarian State Ministry for Economic Affairs and Media, Energy and Technology.
Photos: Tanja Kernweiss
