Encountering Speculative Fiction
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I was given a book a while back and always assumed it to be a collection of science fiction shorts. Tesseracts 10. Intending on reading it, I put it in cue. Now, months later I realize it is a collection of ‘Speculative Fiction‘. According to the Speculative Literature Foundation:
“Speculative literature is a catch-all term meant to inclusively span the breadth of fantastic literature, encompassing literature ranging from hard science fiction to epic fantasy to ghost stories to horror to folk and fairy tales to slipstream to magical realism to modern myth-making — and more.”
And more? So we look on. Wikipedia runs a laundry list:
Speculative fiction is an umbrella term encompassing the more fantastical fiction genres, specifically science fiction, fantasy, horror, supernatural fiction, superhero fiction, utopian and dystopian fiction, apocalyptic and post-apocalyptic fiction, and alternate history in literature as well as related static, motion, and virtual arts.
I find these debates and dialogues interesting – where clashing definitions and logic work to negotiate the borders that classify and redefine ‘notions’ – in this case – within literature, namely fiction. The institutionalization of the speculative fiction further works to validate, legitimize and reinforce the ‘classification.’ A notable outcome of this formal ‘synthesis of speculative genres’ is in its ‘accumulation’ of – Time. While unifying the fantastic and the speculative, Speculative Fiction does not discriminate against – pasts, present/s or futures.
The special attention on: Hypothetical History, Ahistorical Storytelling , Historical Invention, Historical Fiction, Future History and as previously mentioned, Alternate History – suggests Speculative Fiction, might use its atemporality to separate itself from the more widely known science fiction – while retaining the descriptor: ‘a literature of ideas.’
Significance:
I have been thinking a lot lately about the role of Intuition and Speculation in Foresight – the ‘informed’ speculation on topics, forces and dynamics at play. One definition of speculations is “To meditate on a subject; reflect.” other is “To engage in a course of reasoning often based on inconclusive evidence.” We are always working from a position of incomplete information. Confident speculation is a particularly important tool for anticipatory thought, when carefully paired with a controlled suspension of disbelief. I look forward to devouring this book.
Annotation Explorations Pt/1 Futures Theatre
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Indications: Curious Markings
Toronto streets are a harsh patchwork of gashes, smooth fields and forgotten incisions – scar tissue. Asphalt surfaces buttressed against cement and slab, hardened aggregate sheets, crumbled, cracked and corroding. As we build a world-class city our urban grammar has become open surgery. Cranes and caterpillars. Nip and tuck. This is our pervasive construction aesthetic.
Look down anywhere and you will encounter a curious language – Pre-op markings gesturing critical information. These marks aren’t meant for us, they are meant to be ignored, passed over. The haphazard nature of their application, and the water-soluble formula of the spray paint suggest they are purely utilitarian, disposable guidelines. Noise.
Utility Location is a formal process to isolate and label underground public utility mains to deter or guide excavations. They temporarily reveal ‘undercover infrastructures,’ – The Guts – breathing habitable conditions into the built environment. The perpetual state of construction grants the ‘locates’ permanent residency.
Locators, as they are called, are required to provide sufficient information to anyone undertaking a ground disturbance to allow the ground disturber to complete his or her work safely and in compliance with the governing regulations. ‘Identify and Mark’ is an evolving practice of telling visual cautionary tales.
‘Indication’ through the language of engineerial annotation, whether spray-paint, stakes or [ ________ ] goes beyond utility location and is often used to map near future plans directly atop the physical environment. Simple analogue augments where plans are imposed on a 1:1 scale, staking out dimensions and relationships to carefully weave new builds into the civic network of forms and amenities.
Locators play the role of interface between Past, Current & Future states of the city.
Markings are suggestive of both the archive and the plan, an interstitial state between diagram and building. Color-Coding is the common language understood as a shared system to decipher between utilities. Blue lines: Hydro. Yellow: Gas. Red: Electric and so on. There are deviations. Weird colors to indicate bespoke utilities or – facilities – as they are sometimes called, typically there is a continuity that you can observe throughout the widespread repetition of this ‘civic pattern.’
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Intervention: Speculative Street Fiction
Why is this important? Markings are a common condition that inform, and become, the ‘nature’ of our city. These marks may indirectly serve as cover, visual noise to shield the ‘intervener’ who wishes to use this language, its semantics and its rituals of application as a forum to ‘edit’ the city.
Situating of Ideas within design and engineering worlds often occurs once designs are complete, in the installation process. Seldom are plans ‘wild,’ in a raw form outside of a wiki, pilot or town hall. Today, participatory design and crowdsourcing are common terms, and exhibit many manifestations in facilitating change in community oriented programs. It is often used in cases of strategic visioning and comprehensive planning where public consultation is required to gauge approval and cultural fit. There are patterns in these processes we consider relevant: First is the creation of means to organize and freely communicate to discuss issues. In addition, the general access to platforms and enabling tools for personal or group ‘authorship.’ Second is the value that emerges though discussion, the discovery of desire paths, early warning signs and motivational structures of people.
There are defining characteristics from illicit vending, street performance, infiltration and graffiti that might inspire and inform the public negotiation of public spaces. How might the qualities of the ‘unofficial,’ ‘unsanctioned’ even speculative practices interface with the sketch-like engineering qualities that are exhibited in utility location markings? Encouraging – Disposability. The Gesture. Non-chalante proposals of the unbuilt environment.
Architects are known to stake out a plan, and walk through enacting the program with the client. Appealing to the imagination by showcasing triggers to scales, positions and perspectives. How might we extend the utility language to include new types of markings to form spatial critique and creation? Ideally moving toward a practice of sketching fictional settings.
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Improvisation: Futures Theatre
Jane Jacobs framed sidewalks as the information architecture of the city. Their scale affords intimate vantages, speeds and durations within cultural textures. There is an opportunity to consider the street as ‘Whenware’ to pre-enact situations in order to enter and access mechanics of experience and tool with the possibilities. We suggest Pre-enactments as a performative tool to move quickly through – many versions of exploratory scenarios or ‘plays’ to momentarily occupy a myriad of alternative futures.
Like a scene taken from Dogville, engineerial diagrams place you in the story, spatial triggers to imagine within. Settings, props – people, places and things assemble an actor network – from which we will draw upon to sketch fictional public systems. Developing a language at the intersection of utility location markings, architectural plans and interaction modeling. It is on these ‘stages’ where we hope to casually perform, debate and discuss versions of plausible and/or odd near future sequences, scenes and situations. Authoring the future is a social activity, made vivid by the informed perspectives and imaginations that share in actively conjuring how the future might ‘play out.‘
‘Suggestive marking as intervention’ within the lanscape of inherited infrastructures suggests a shift in power. How might the street become a stage for a new mixture of sketch annotation and diagrammatic storytelling as ways of situating, visualizing and occupying ‘possible places?’ It is not intended to create interference patterns to distort and confuse, but to create ‘Inscriptions of civic value,’ intended to make people think differently about public expressions in relation to infrastructures we inherit as opposed to the infrastructures we should inherit. We intend to create curious breaks in the overall local rhythm – temporary autonomous zones’- to impose public attractors to Open Urbanism, Situated Foresight, Civic Gaming, that is, the city would be non-destructively mutable and dialogical rather than a ‘background.’
Enchanted Objects + Non Invasive Diagnostics Pt1
Caress Non-Invasive Diagnostic Orb
Non-invasive self-diagnostic technologies are on the rise and represent a significant opportunity to positively impact the experience of managing chronic diseases like diabetes, encouraging greater adherence to diagnostics/treatment regimes; while also enabling a greater levels of education, awareness, and accessibility to people seeking to engage in more informed, healthier, hands-on preventative lifestyles.
A couple years ago a small team of friends including Andrew Lockhart, Kengwei Lu, Richard Thomas and myself decided to explore and submit a self-diagnostic concept to the annual Diabetes Mine Design Competition that incorporated non-invasive electromagnetic technology capable of measuring blood glucose levels. We were very excited to propose an idea (described below) that focused on improving, externalizing, and socializing the diagnostic process by making it more friendly, open, accessible and acceptable.
Caress
Caress Non-Invasive Diagnostic Orb
Often upon diagnosis of diabetes, people will retreat and internalize their experience. The nature of current glucose meter technology can exacerbate this issue by forcing people to navigate this new landscape by themselves, which in addition to increasing feelings of isolation, can put a strain on relationships with concerned family and loved ones.
Caress is an “enchanted object“, a diagnostic platform that combines physical hardware with web and mobile services to provide people living with (and without) diabetes a simple set of tools and services to monitor and track their blood sugar levels while providing the opportunity to socialize their experience and educate others. By utilizing existing non invasive electromagnetic technology developed at Baylor University and/or a number of other research centers, users will be able to accurately measure their glucose levels simply by touching or caressing the device, transitioning the blood glucose readings from a painful and awkward, private experience to one that is more natural, compelling and habit forming.
Caress Non-Invasive Diagnostic Platform
For tracking purposes Caress also employs hand vein scanning technology to identify and differentiate between users in order to allow friends, coworkers and family members to participate in the experience and see their blood glucose levels, promoting better understanding and removing some of the isolation that many people living with diabetes feel. Hand vein scanning was decided upon over fingerprint and other forms of biometrics as it is more accurate and is a more intuitive form of interaction when considering the intended form and function of the platform.
Caress - personal diagnostic and management platform web mock
Each Caress device will be networked with existing bluetooth, cellular and/or WIFI capabilities, allowing readings to be transmitted to the web services component of the platform through home or office computers or mobile devices. Users will be able to access their personal metrics around blood sugar levels etc through their computers or mobile devices, with the opportunity to receive mobile alerts when it is time to take a reading. Over time, the aggregated data will help users and their health care providers understand patterns of behavior and identify the optimal approaches to managing their health.
Caress Non-Invasive Diagnostic Smart Phone "Skin"
Immortal Industries
Last year, a Tiger Woods Nike commercials drew significant attention to the ethics, morality, and creepiness surrounding the use of his late father’s voice, and the authenticity of Tiger’s introspective and apologetic performance. Gossip aside- the “re-incarnation” and “re-performance” of Tiger’s dad signals yet again the slow emergence of what we may call the “immortal industries”. This new market/context is defined by the capture, preservation, extension, transmediation, re-interpretation, re-performance and ultimate re-experience of personas past. Eventually, despite your best efforts – you will be automated.
An earlier and perhaps more compelling example of this can be seen here in the late Glen Gould‘s “reperformance” enabled by Zenph Studios and a very well tuned Yamaha self playing piano. Family, friends and contemporaries commented that the experience was so real that it was like his ghost was in the room. This is innovation. Read the original NY Times article by Edward Rothstein here – a video by Michael Lawrence on Zenph Studios and the Bach Project is posted below.
As time passes the ability to record, recover, remix and re-insert individuals back into real-time-play with greater and greater fidelity proposes fascinating choices and opportunities across all contexts and categories. We have always been aware of our temporary physical presence and mortality- as such we’ve commissioned and created self-preserving – self-perpetuating artifacts and monuments to our existence from small simple personal objects like jewelry, drawing and paintings, to imposing stone pyramids -now remixed commercials and self-playing AI enabled pianos. What’s next? Technology is most definitely enabling for increasingly higher resolution versions of ourselves to post-exist.
This immortal future is not about the “singularity” and overpriced vitamin regimes- although it does touch on humanity+ and transhumanism. What is certain is that it will continue to be profound and reside in the purely magical and possibly technology/drug enhanced illusionary experience of someone else – possibly even a past or future version of ourselves. Who will enable this? What organizations are poised to emerge as the dominant players within this space?
With the increasing popularity of “lifelogging” and the vast amounts of “open source info”, recorded behaviors, opinions, likes, comments and other social media that are being captured and stored online- it’s only a matter of time before you will be pieced back together by a well meaning distant relative, security firm or defense contractor, inept high school kid with a history project to complete, a bad DJ, an ad agency, or some common version of ancestry.com. How does this make you feel?
Until now, the problems, opportunities and existential dilemmas associated with this personification have been limited to the consideration of the powerful, famous, and wealthy few- with the less fortunate having to accept more humble forms of memory, self-preservation and extension. As this space evolves will the rights to your common and relatively unknown persona may be sold/retained/acquired by a much lesser version of the Richman agency and licensed out to third parties for entertainment… the good, bad and ugly.
More to come…
Werep Environmental Scanning
Environmental Scanning (ES) is a core method/approach used within foresight , strategic planning, design and innovation practices; it has been widely employed, discussed, and evolved by individuals and organizations for many many years. Environmental scanning is fundamentally about observing and learning from our “environment” in order to imagine-debate-decide and act.
Environmental scanning involves the identification, collection and analysis of signals from a variety of subjects/contexts including: the social, scientific, technological, economic, environmental and political. We explore and question the potential of these inputs in order to develop a more informed understanding of operational contexts, the choices and opportunities therein.
We believe that environmental scanning should be approached as a discovery based learning process that is meant to:
- increase awareness (our ability to orient)
- improve literacy (our ability to understand, think critically and debate)
- empower action (our ability to define, decide, create, plan and act).
The aim of environmental scanning is to discover and introduce new knowledge that challenges assumptions, provokes imaginations, inspires creative dialogues and meaningful expression.
ES helps to fill in critical knowledge gaps and establish a more complete awareness of past, present, and future situations; and to better understand our options and latent potential therein. ES tends to focus on three areas or “operational zones” including:
- the core (immediate market, industry or operational contexts)
- adjacent (areas that are known of but not occupied or well understood)
- periphery (the completely foreign, unfamiliar, wild, and over the horizon unknowns)
We recommend a best practices approach to foresight and environmental scanning that combines all three previously described focus areas with varying degrees of attention and intensity. Establishing the right scope and balance between these impacts the breadth and depth of strategic VS tactical knowledge, insights and situational awareness.
Within the three operational zones mentioned above we scan for:
- Examples of individual or collective behavior manifesting in a variety of ways including the habits, tasks, actions and activities of people; their unique and common modes of thought, expression/communication, the artifacts they collect, interact with and/or create, the way they work-play etc. Our approach to ES focuses on identifying and expanding upon the motivations, values and logic that underpins and drives behaviors, as well as, their meaning in relation to other signals/behaviors existing within adjacent contexts.
- Existing, emerging, and anticipated technologies: we seek out and collect examples of relevant technology based on their functional qualities and characteristics; their potential to enable -and or- reveal behaviors, satisfy needs-wants-desires, and disrupt or challenge existing conventions and paradigms. In addition to identifying the salient qualities and characteristics of a particular technology we also focus our analysis on forecasting its potential evolution as an enabler of new behaviors and business models – and how a technology may be applied beyond its originally intended function and use.
- Political, environmental and economic conditions that may influence, inspire, or have a significant impact upon- behavior (latent & manifest, individual & collective), the development and adoption of new technology; and the pace, type and nature of changing values, motivations, and attitudes.
Where does ES fit? ES can play an equally powerful role early on at the fuzzy front end of a strategic planning / innovation process helping to challenge, provoke, frame, inspire and guide. 2) During planning and innovation cycles in order to support, stimulate, expand, verify. 3) Post innovation and planning in order to help anticipate and chart long-term impacts.
ES can also be approached as a one-time ad-hoc activity, or as a cumulative-continuous and or ongoing process. For best results, Werep believes that ES should be approached as a cumulative, culturally embedded, and ongoing process that systematically builds up knowledge, literacy’s and awareness.
If you would like to learn more about our perspective and approach to environmental scanning please contact us at info@werepideas.com .
WEREP Intellectual Property Expansion (IPE™)
Within today’s fast paced, complex, and highly competitive landscape it is important to consider the strategic and tactical ways a novel invention may be applied in order to maximize its potential; increase its overall impact, user benefits, and returns on investment.
Why? Many inventions fail to become innovations because they are often highly specialized technical achievements (funded) to address very specific needs – once proven they either improve upon an existing process and/or procedure, or introduce an entirely new one. Their potential is not always recognized- let alone understood. In addition to this “hyper-specialization” we recognize that many inventors are “married” to their work and have difficulty stepping back to see a broader range of potential applications, design and commercialization opportunities beyond the original scope of investigation, subject and/or industry context, or are unable to clearly articulate their ideas and aspirations to more general and adjacent audiences. We can help.
Some of our most interesting work focuses on what we call “intellectual property expansion” (IPE), that is seeking meaningful and valid answers to the question what else could this be? This involves working closely with inventors, academia, subject matter experts, commercialization offices and/or IP firms to expand and enhance the scope of a patentable claim; exploring and articulating a range of potential uses and applications of a novel technology, method, product or process etc. prior to filing in order to help maximize its value.
To do this we apply design research and foresight methods in order to help stakeholders look beyond the original/intended scope of their invention and gain a better understanding of its latent potential, future contexts it may someday occupy; the ways it may be adopted and or adapted by end-users, its impact on- and roles within existing and/or emerging markets, and the variety of end user experiences it may some day enable. Our approach seeks to map out opportunity spaces and identify the most plausible contexts for future application by aligning an invention’s core capabilities, functional qualities and characteristics (potential) with existing, emerging and anticipated user needs.
If you would like to learn more about this process and our cross-industry IPE experience please contact us at info@werepideas.com
A Continuous and Porous Cycle
Intersections for Negotiating Meaning
Our objects, spaces, environments and texts serve as continual grounding for our cultural ideologies – acting as an infrastructure, they confer and act of bridging, enabling a framework for dialogue and interaction.
AContinousAndPorousCycle2
Imagination Potential: The Human Resource
Imagination: The faculty or action of forming new ideas, or images, or external objects not present to the senses.
Potential: the inherent capacity for coming into being
Background:
“What we think and do changes the patterns of connections within the neural networks of the brain, and this can alter the brain’s structure and function.”
“They suggest that the brain remains ‘plastic’ throughout our lives, and could be ‘sculpted’ by how we use it. It may be possible to exploit this neuroplasticity to create novel, noninvasive and non-pharmaceutical therapies for some neurological conditions.”
Prof. Tim Crow / Clues to the origin of language / Research Intelligence
Source:
Knowledge Technologies and the Asymmetric Threat
Paul S. Prueitt, PhD
Research Professor
Cyber Security Policy & Research Center
George Washington University
IMAGINATION POTENTIAL (IP) – THE HUMAN RESOURCE
Error in the face of dilemma has been attributed to failures of imagination and failures of vision.
We see Imagination potential as the totality of what can be thought. Of what images, original or existing that can be formed in the mind. IP might also be considered as the rate at which the imagination can intuit and synthesize disparate variables into meaningful wholes.
-How do we help ourselves more deeply explore this potential?
-What is the value associated with it? (Relative to the individual & organization)
Imagination potential represents a critical frontier of our age that can and should be explored, developed, exercised more intensely. As an asymmetric element of intelligence, imagination is an endless resource of envisioning potential; its flexibility continually produces content disproportionate and disruptive to the existing and the known. While many human skills and capacities can be automated the processes of human imagination, to the extent of our current knowledge, cannot. Our imaginative processes symbolize one of the key differentiators of our species; it is the human resource, a truly sapien cognitive function; setting us apart from the rest of nature and technology.
-How does imagination affect competitive advantage within the knowledge economy?
It is likely that a comprehensive non-pharmaceutical approach to achieving a neuro-competitive advantage required to face existing and emerging dilemmas will be taken. How do we cultivate an increased capability to imagine? What is missing is an integration of the best of natural science and computer science (Prueitt) to develop the analytical technologies and processes, equally qualitive and quantitive, required to arrive at a measure resembling something of an Imagination Quotient.
It may be that organizations internally engage to demonstrate imaginative capabilities and barriers, for the purpose of deploying imagination diagnoses to gain a high resolution of the entirety of an organization’s imaginative “assets.” These imaginative assets can be described as the sum of depth, variety and expression of imaginative types contained within. A corresponding set of literacy and experience expansion exercises, incubators and accelerators can be created and deployed to improve and nurture the development of existing and unknown forms of imagination. These protocols may be a potential future foundation for hiring processes, business education, and evaluation of competition as well as alliances.
Expanding our imaginative potential to address issues outside of existential threat and competitive gain has the potential sub-effect of forming advantageous positions beyond competition. Which may serve to conceive of, and define latent roles and markets currently not present to the senses.
-Is human imagination potential the primary frontier of the knowledge age?
-How does imagination affect competitive advantage within the knowledge economy?
-Could an asymmetric lifestyle and literacy contribute to the development of a more complete full spectrum imagination?
-What role does literacy play in the development of the imagination?
RELATED TOPICS TO BE EXPLORED
Types of Imagination
“The Full Spectrum Imagination”
Education, Literacies and Building Imagination
Imagination Metrics
Market and Competitor Diagnosis
Collaboration and Alliance
Original Experience: A Lifestyle
“They have moved out of the society that would have protected them, and into the dark forest, into the world of fire, of original experience. Original experience has not been interpreted for you, and so you have to work out life for yourself. Either you can take it or you can’t. you don’t have to go far off the interpreted path to find yourself in very difficult situations. The courage to face the trials and to bring a whole new body of possibilities into the field of interpreted experience for other people to experience – that is the heroes deed.”
Source:
Joseph Campbell – The Power of Myth
Does experience enhance and reflect ones ability to imagine, and vice versa?
ORIGINAL EXPERIENCE: A LIFESTYLE
Joseph Campbell likens this form of experience to the metaphors of journeying into the dark forest, or into the world of fire. These poetic framings describe entering situations with no formerly constructed insight, order or infrastructure. It is a frontier with no prior contact or exposure. By accessing new vantages from which a greater amount to uncharted dynamics can be seen; choices and opportunities can be identified, analyzed and transformed into beneficial and valuable outcomes.
The symmetric lifestyle we describe as the pre-lived life; furnished with common knowledge, expectations and a degree of predictability it is the commons of interpreted experience. Alternative motivations, desire and uncommon goal setting born from an original experience signify steps toward engaging in an asymmetric lifestyle. Which in turn establishes greater chances to participate in original experiences.
Original Experience is a transformative mechanism in that it requires one to cognize situations, forces and elements without names, history, associated beliefs and definitions. These experiential trials practice the minds ability change its neural structures that reflect a process of arriving at an understanding of a new vantage or variable. This forces one to exercise and sharpen their instinctive discernment, intuitive faculties, open-mindedness, and decision-making abilities. Delivering whole new ”bodies of possibility” to others is what we see to be the value of original experience.
The pursuit of original experience in the knowledge age may give rise to a new succession of human dream and desire revealed by the conditions and requirements that are unique to our current mixed epochal conditions.
RELATED TOPICS TO BE EXPLORED
Transformation and Awareness
-Supplementing and Intensifying the Imagination
-Knowledge, Tools and Literacies
-Motivation and Desire
-Experience and Neuroplasticity
-Metaphor and Lateral Thinking
-Communication and Extension of Benefit
