Artefact 240
Things to do, places to go
Well, hello there. This edition of the newsletter is full to the brim with things you can attend, use, watch, enjoy. We might as well just dive right in, I guess? Starting with the most anticipated one, perhaps…
The Obliquiscope - Out Today!
“Oh, where can I get one of them..?” is the phrase I’ve heard most when holding up the Obliquiscope to the world.
Short answer: you can get one here.
It was packaged as part of the Regenerative Design Field Kit, of course, but some people just wanted it on its own. Initially, I was a little hesitant about just sending them out on their own, as it was designed and used primarily in the context of teaching the Innovation and Future Thinking course (more on that later).
But running around the streets of Lisbon for Future Days, seeing 200+ people using them to examine the city, made me realise that, with the lightest of instructions described in the last newsletter, that it was just what people needed.
The Obliquiscope can be found here on the shelves of artefactshop.com today.
If you are after a custom run with sleeves, or even in a different language, we’ve already shipped off a run with a German version this week too (thanks Chiara!).
And finally, if you want to run a city scanning exercise with your team, just get in touch by replying to this newsletter or using the contact form.
Next Friday is a BUSY ONE…
Like some sort of celestial alignment that only happens once in a blue moon (wait, is that a kind of tautology?), it seems that next Friday 24th May we are hosting both the next session of The Steps Collective, and the monthly Cardstock meetup.
The Steps Collective - 1pm UK time
We are delighted that Adam Chmielowski and Ellen de Vries will join us online to discuss two fascinating perspectives on the cultural myths and ideologies around the regenerative space, and then how language plays a part in bringing different groups together to develop shared understanding.
It is online at 1pm UK time, and you can book a place here.
Sign up to The Steps Collective email list for more details
Cardstock - 4pm UK time
Julian Hanna will join us to talk about his Manifesto work, card decks, and if the mood takes us, we may well have a go at creating the Cardstock Manifesto…
Sign up to Cardstock email list for details on how to join
IED Innovation & Future Thinking 2024
The tenth anniversary of the IED Innovation & Future Thinking course is upon us, and Toban Shadlyn and I have written up an piece explaining not just what we did last year, but why we’re repeating our theme of Water at a critical time for Barcelona and the wider region.
If you’d like to join us this summer for the course, or know someone who might, please do share the link, and we’re happy to answer questions from curious minds. We might also host a little online preview session soon.
Malmo Calling
The Conference in Malmo is one of my favourite events I’ve ever been to, both as a speaker then as an attendee.
The gang there have kindly offered a discount code for Artefacts readers to receive a 20% discount on tickets for this year - https://www.theconference.se/tickets - just use the code FRIENDSOFTC24
More details on what they are up to this year:
The program for The Conference 2024 (in Malmö, Sweden since 2021 (videos archive)) embraces the powerful triad of hindsight, insight and foresight.
On day one, the focus is backwards into our many pasts—the systems, infrastructures, and relationships—before peering over the horizon on day two, looking ahead to the tools and trends, creative spaces, and mental models needed to build many preferable futures. https://www.theconference.se/program
Confirmed speakers are, among others, Anab Jain (Superflux), Nipun Mehta (ServiceSpaceAI), Dr. Somya Joshi (Stockholm Environment Institute), Dr. John de la Parra (Rockefeller Foundation), Rosa Whiteley (COOKING SECTIONS/Climavore), Trudy Painter (Google), Laura Feinstein (Kickstarter), Dr. Katlyn Turner (MIT), Jemma Foster (AI Artist), and Georgina Voss (Author of “Systems Ultra”). https://www.theconference.se/speaker-lineup
The Conference’ curator's goal is that you’ll walk away with new mindsets and materials, teachings and tools, practices and parallels to help get you out of “oh fuck,” and into “now what?”
Worldbuilding workshop
Fellow Cardstock Committee member Rina Atienza is hosting a fabulous sounding online workshop with
Flux Trends on Friday 7th June. There will be a mix of professionals, academics and art students exploring the future of education - if that’s your bag, do book up to join in.
Tickets are only £75, available here:
https://fluxtrends.com/events/world-building-uk-group/
More details:
Do you know that 'Futures Thinking' is a dark art?
Whatever 'change' you want to make, there are groups who are chess moves ahead because they spend time and money building 'future scenarios' and then enacting on them to make policy, laws, and business deals.
Would you like to have a peek into this for Education Futures?
This workshop will help us to counter the bad designs we've been sold. This workshop will include art students.
"We explore how the future could unfold to help people make better decisions today. By offering different possible versions of the future, our work stretches minds, confronts assumptions and helps people think differently about the world around them."
“The Future” is dead
Finally, talking of Worldbuilding, have a watch of Paul Graham Raven’s recent talk on the area - I’m a big fan of the narrative structure idea he’s been working on for a while, and am weaving some of the ideas into something else I’ve been working on for this summer…
