03.21 // Future Visions
For this class, we had futurist and professor in the School of Design Stuart Candy give the students an introduction to the fundamentals of foresight and futuring. Stuart began with the Polak game outside in the rotunda in front of the School of Design and had the students line up on a horizontal axis as a starting point. He then asked them to move forward or background from that starting point, depending on whether they thought the world would be better (move forward) or worse (move backwards) 20 years from now, in 2039. The distance they moved in either direction reflected the intensity of their convictions about the future.
The students were then asked to move to the right or left from a vertical axis point to indicate their sense of agency to influence that future in 2039. Again, the distance moved from the center reflected their level of conviction. By the end, the students had essentially placed themselves on a quadrant with only a couple outliers.
Afterwards, Stuart had a discussion with students about why they placed themselves where they were in the matrix. He asked them to consider now their position might change if asked to consider the future only 5 years from now versus 100 years from now, and reminded them to be conscious not only of different scales of time, but how their sense of agency would change depending on that scale.
He touched on different aspects of perspective: first, that their position on the quadrant would change over time, that different life experiences would influence their outlook on the future. Along the same lines, he asked them to consider how aspects of privilege, culture, and individual background influences a person’s perspective of the future. He urged them not only to be mindful of but to make space for those differing perspectives and views, keeping in mind that the visions least likely to be articulated may be the most needed and important to hear.
After wrapping up outside, we returned to the classroom, and Stuart had the class write down popular images of the future and tendencies they identify, and then discuss with a partner and then in groups.
