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Prototyping Social Forms Curated Panel: Un altro mondo è possibile

PSF Curated Panel: Un altro mondo è possibile

Sha Xin Wei, Muindi F Muindi, Desiree Foerster, Teoma Naccarato, John MacCallum, Garrett Laroy Johnson, Dulmini Perera, Zeynep Aksöz-Balzar, Mark Balzar, Galo Patricio Moncayo Asan, Satinder Gill and Vangelis Lympouridis

Part of the Prototyping Social Forms “Un altro mondo è possibile” Stream
(see submissions 82 and 195) for Anticipation Conference @ ASU 18-18 November 2022

“Another world is possible”

“Detourning” the notion of anticipation, the interdisciplinary and international collective Prototyping Social Forms (PSF) offers a series of workshops and a curated panel on enacting alternatives to what is presently the case so as to better imagine, sketch, inhabit and reflect on other ways of living in the world that may be obscured by present narratives. Supplementing techniques like world-building or trend-casting for extrapolating from the present to the future, we develop platforms, techniques, and technologies to make locally-generated skilled practices transportable and transformable, forming such knowledge into “germs” that can “sprout” in disparate learning and research environments. Rather than create recordings of some activity or finished products for exchange, these germs condense living processes that can metabolize into another suite of living processes that may grow quite differently under other conditions. Thus we supplement representation of “know-thats” with ways to disseminate and germinate know-hows, know-whys, and know-whens.
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PSF’s work revolves around the practice of prototyping—the generation of models, or rather, germs, that can develop and grow in various ways and within different contexts, without assuming a fixed outcome. By focusing on the practice of prototyping, PSF attends to processes of development and their dynamics, as well as the limiting and enabling constraints of different “knowledge ecologies.”
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Inspired by “seed banks” developed and maintained by horticulturalists and ecologists, the PSF Process Germ Bank is an experimental infrastructure for sharing germs of research-creation practices and for developing signature methods for probing and promoting diversity within different knowledge ecologies. Hybridizing metaphors, we offer a “seed ball” of process germs to try out in the terrain of the Anticipation Conference 2022 and stand ready to prepare conditions for embedding these process germs in the event with local organizers.

We propose two 90-minute techniques workshops (submissions 82 and 195) followed by one 90-minute curated session for reflections upon the techniques workshops and related work.

FOREGROUND ACTIVITY

We pass a wireless microphone among curated participants who take turns offering reports on enactive work either from the sister PSF Workshops, or from other projects.

• Participants from the PSF Techniques Workshops (submissions 82 and 195) recount their experiences with the different germs such as: Rhythm, Time Zone, Atmosphere, Sense-making Complexity….. (See PSF workshop submissions for the descriptions of the germs and how they would be enacted.)

• Vibrant Fields (Aksöz, Balzar, Asan) https://www.vibrantfields.net/

• SloMoCo (Johnson) https://moco21.movementcomputing.org

• Synthesis-UNDP Navigating Complexity Alternate Reality Simulation (Sha, Lympouridis) https://synthesiscenter.net/projects/navigating-uncertainty-ars/

BACKGROUND ACTIVITY
Cooking in parallel with the Foreground Activity: Every participant will bring ingredients and instructions for something edible or drinkable, and easy to make in under 30 minutes. The instructions can be in conventional text, but we encourage alternative modalities and forms such as a score, a diagram, a recorded video or song, a knotted string, …. The participants exchange recipes and associate ingredients, enact them in a fixed time, then order the creations into a meal. Duration 2.5 hours including break(s) for palate cleanser walks; kitchen access, indoor / outdoor tables to sit within earshot, local sound reinforcement.

Related research streams: Prototyping Social Forms, Alter-Eco,