Preferable Worlds

We are the Milan chapter ofSpeculative Futures, an international meetup community that focuses on work and practice in the fields of Speculative and Critical Design, Design Fiction, Futures Studies and Strategic Foresight.We host speakers — practitioners, teachers, students, and other professionals who will be talking about relevant praxis and methods. We also host workshops which will allow you to learn how to conduct and apply futures thinking in a variety of circumstances as a method of synthesis and strategy.Stay tuned

Speculative Futures Milan

To say that we are living through a key moment in history may be an understatement: unprecedented levels of inequality, a crisis of the global democratic order, the challenges of AI and automation, the existential threat of climate change… and then the COVID-19 pandemic. If human history was a TV series we would be <a href="https://www.futurepod.org/podcast/2020/3/9/ep-39-xxx-jorge-camacho" target="_blank" data-msys-clicktrack="0" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer">living through a cliffhanger</a>. What happens in the next few decades will decide what happens in the next few centuries and beyond.Interestingly, this comes at a time when design, broadly understood, is being recognized by organizations and communities as an essential mode of engaging with the world and, thus, as a main vector for change. Jorge Camacho started to explore some of these ideas in a recent article, titled “<a href="https://medium.com/@j_camachor/design-the-next-30-years-bc82ebd71a20?source=friends_link&sk=e6ed68e66ea0f2223cf7c4b24d36bbbb" target="_blank" data-msys-clicktrack="0" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer">Design: The ‘Next’ 30 Years</a>”, which ended with a brief speculation based on four alternative futures: Growth, Collapse, Discipline, and Transformation. James Dator’s “four generic images of the future” is not only a well-established framework in the futures’ field — and particularly useful to explore long-term, broad topics — but it also, quite presciently, maps current discussions in economics, political theory and social movements about what comes next and, most importantly, what needs to be done. In this talk and workshop, Jorge will present the basics of this framework and set current conversations that can be mapped onto it: smart green growth, degrowth, anti-civilization, and terraforming, to name a few. Then, through two quick activities, we’ll explore how we got here and how design could both contribute and adapt to those futures. Specifically, we’ll ask participants to imagine themselves as designers (or, more broadly, as creative professionals) in any one of those alternative futures. What would you do?

<h3>Agenda</h3>7 pm Welcome7:15 pm Onboarding7:25 pm Activity: Look back to look forward. 7:40 pm Preferable Worlds: Talk and Q&A08:30 pm Activity: What would you do? Imagine your future (designer) self.08:45 pm Share out and closing.

<h3>About Jorge Camacho</h3>Jorge Camacho is a strategic designer, foresight consultant, researcher, and lecturer. He is a co-founder of <a href="http://diagonal.studio/" target="_blank" data-msys-clicktrack="0" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer">Diagonal</a>: a research, design, and futures studio based in Mexico City. He is also a Research Affiliate at<a href="http://www.iftf.org/home/" target="_blank" data-msys-clicktrack="0" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer"> Institute for the Future</a> and board member of <a href="https://www.plurality-university.org/" target="_blank" data-msys-clicktrack="0" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer">Plurality University Network</a> (U+).Jorge studied an MA Cybernetic Culture and a Ph.D. in Cultural Studies at the University of East London. As a researcher and lecturer, he’s interested in design practices that aim to drive social change such as design futures, systemic design, and transition design. He currently teaches systems and futures thinking at the MA Design Studies and the Design of Tomorrow program at CENTRO and the MA Strategic Design and Innovation at IBERO Ciudad de México. He’s lectured at EGADE Business School (Mexico), h2i institute (Madrid), among others.He has worked as a creative director, strategist, and director of innovation at various organizations including Flock (currently Isobar Mexico), Google, and Uncommon. He has led projects in product and service design, as well as strategic foresight, for international companies such as Coca-Cola, Nissan, Ab InBev, Visa, Gentera, as well as public organizations such as Mexico City’s Laboratorio para la Ciudad and CINDE (Costa Rica).

<h3>Who is this intended for?</h3>Designers and other creative professionals interested in both design futures (speculative design, design fiction, etc.) and the futures of design, especially if you’re interested in the role that design may play in driving social change.

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Preferable Worlds

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