Syns: Discussing food possible futures
FOOD, DATA AND US
End of October, we participated to the Lift Basel Conference where we had the opportunity to hold a workshop building upon Syns scenario. This workshop aimed at making the participants reflect on their current relationship with food. They were prompted to think about it by extending the Syns universe, creating objects and services that could appear in the particular social settings associated with Syns.
As a reminder, Syns is a design fiction where food is a fully personalised commodity. In a near future, a company called Syns has become the leader in food production and distribution by offering customers a novel food paradigm. It proposes to prepare fully customised meals using customer’s personal data, ranging from social data (online activities…) to health data (treatments…). Those data are translated into genetic sequences in order to create tailor-made vegetables and fruits which are in turn processed into healthy meals. Each person having subscribed to the service will get daily their fresh Syns meal delivered at their home before leaving for work or any other activity.
Today, we will not dive into the concepts imagined by the participants, as we will further develop them. We will focus on the method used to carry out the workshop and what kind of outputs we were looking for. We will also do a summary of the discussions that happened between the participants during the production of the scenarios. Finally we will present the insights we gained from the workshop and propose some thoughts on how to improve the method used.
EMPTY SPACES
The workshop was divided in three parts. The participants were first introduced to the Syns universe thanks to a short presentation and film clips from the original fictional documentaries.
They were then invited to work from those insights to imagine how could the Syns society be. In order to enable the participants to build narratives within Syns universe, we created a series of assets. Those assets are in fact maps of everyday life places before and after Syns, focusing especially on food-related spaces. On one hand, the pre-Syns maps correspond to environments we are used to in our daily life. On the other hand, on the Syns maps those mundane environments have been altered by the disappearance of spaces related to food, letting empty areas asking only to be filled.
It is also important to note that those spaces can be considered as a generalization, as we are conscious that many of the spaces described below are not always built like this. Please keep in mind that those maps are here to trigger the imagination of the workshop participants who have the opportunity to point out this fact and then think of different settings.
The Home
One of our assets focused on the home. This is a place familiar to all of us, where food occupies an important role and place. Every house has a dedicated space for food and cooking, commonly called “kitchen”. In this perspective our homes are our preponderant daily link with food. Although this link can be profoundly different from one person to the other according to variables such as culture, education or simply interest in food.
The first illustration shows a contemporary regular house with two bedrooms, a living room, a kitchen and a bathroom. The second illustration asks then a question resulting from Syns existence: what if kitchens weren’t existing anymore? Once we are rid of the constraints that can be associated with food, especially food preparation and storage, how would we use this newly emptied space where was once the kitchen? Would we totally rethink the concept of home and reinvent our house model and its associated community life within it?
The Office
The second assets correspond to the workspace. Most of us are more or less going five days a week to their office. The office most of the time comprises a canteen, or something similar, for their lunch break. Although it is easy to think of other spaces where food plays a more or less obvious role: spaces to relax and have a coffee-break, meeting room where some pastries or fruits are proposed… In the specific context of the workplace, food is often associated with relaxing and social times.
The first drawing shows this kind of office space organised on two floors. On the ground floor, you can find the restrooms and the canteen. On the first floor, there is an open space filled with working desks and another room made for meetings. In the second drawing, the canteen has disappeared, as theoretically each employee is supposed to bring his Syns food with him. Some other workplace rituals would also disappear, such as the food present during meetings. Would new rituals take their place? Or would the work structure be reconsidered and changed? If so, how?
The City
Finally, the last maps represent the city in its global aspect. The city is a very specific entity when we put it in relation with food. It is the place where we can get the food we will eat later at home. The specific store we will go to buy food depends of a lot of factors such as accessibility, prices or personal beliefs and values. Then the city is also the place where you can get food as a service: in fast-foods and restaurants. Those can as much be used because of their convenience, you order and get something to put in your belly, or because of their social function, people like going to a good restaurants or bar with their friends. Little by little, they become as an extension of the home, a well-known environment, a personal social life landmark… The city is plural and corresponds to many different realities for each individual.
The first illustration proposes a general view of a present-day city, whereas the second offers a view where all food-related buildings have disappeared. Here, again, the question is how those buildings would be replaced. What kind of new spaces would be created to satisfy our socialising needs?
In a final part, the participants were asked to write down the thoughts of their possible Syns selves into a diary. This aimed at immersing them into the universe by making them thinking about how their own daily life would be in such a society. Indirectly, they were asked to think how their own values, the ones they follow on a daily basis, were challenged and how they would be affected by it. Most of the propositions were built from the discussions and ideas that happened just before.
DISCUSSIONS
The discussions triggered during the workshop go across a wide range of concerns. The participants mentioned very philosophical questions linked to the free will of individuals as well as more cultural ones, questioning the fate of century-long food traditions.
Economic concerns
One of the first issue raising among the participants was the problem of Syns monopoly. As it has been originally imagined, Syns is supposedly the only big player in the food industry. How this food monopoly would translate in the consumer’s life and what are the other questions ensuing from it? For example, how could the consumers have any means of pressure against the company if there is no other food choice available? In parallel, one has the right to wonder how the intrinsic value of food would be determined if Syns is the only one to produce it. In short, how would the whole economic system work?
Social concerns
Linked to the notion of monopoly, the question of accessibility appears. As Syns is able to put the price they want on their product, it can easily become out of reach for many people by being too pricy. We can wonder then how those people would have any access to food. Would some kind of “food welfare state” happen, where people would still get Syns food thanks to an intervention of the State? Or would it be a darker access to food through some kind of black food market?
Scientific concerns
One of the new health concern possible in Syns is an overall increase of the organism sensitivity towards foreign bodies, in particular to food components the body is not used to ingest because of the personalised diets. What if some involuntary Syns plants cross-species mutation happened? This could lead to some cross-contamination in the food produced resulting in health problems for the consumers, presumably allergic reactions. Can other health consequences be imagined and how would that impact the relationship with food?
Cultural concerns
Another point that was strongly debated was the place of food tradition and food culture within the Syns society which functioning model would wipe out any ritual linked to food. All cultures have a specific relation with food and sets of rituals associated with it. Should we imagine that Syns, in their solution, takes into account those points?
By extension, food as tradition is often linked to social rituals and social gathering. Indeed, food is often present during our social moment: we are most of the time with other people while eating a meal, and when hanging out, it’s not rare to have some snacks or drinks around. In Syns, what would happened to the social dimension traditionally associated with food? Would it become something of the past? If so, what kind of new rituals and habits would form around the notion of social interactions?
Philosophical concerns
Finally, one of the prominent question raised by the participants was the notion of free will and individual choices. Syns can resemble some dystopian 1984 food society where individuals data are collected in real time and dictate what consumers’ diet will be. How in such a society individuals still have any possibility to make food choices? Would people just accept the system? Would some people try to reverse-engineer the system in order to be able to manipulate the data collected to make the system produce food he wants to eat? Or would some people try to escape the system by creating illegal farms?
CONCLUSIONS
In our perspective, the workshop was successful by being able to trigger interesting discussions and it allowed the exchange of opinions and ideas on the topic of food. The participants really debated their own conception of food, but also built on top of each other arguments in order to find ideas that would be pertinent in the Syns society. By doing so, they had to confront several topics linked to food: culture, society, economics, philosophy… This also made the participants become aware of the complexity of the food system and how many metrics have to be taken into account in order to make meaningful and impactful changes in it. They also realised that some problems showed by Syns, such as monopoly, are already encountered today if we take the example of seed production, market largely owned and controlled by one corporation: Monsanto.
We were also very pleased to see that the participants tried to project themselves in this possible future and really imagined how their daily life would be impacted by Syns. Indeed, food takes quite an important amount of time in our lives. Having a system such as Syns, even if it wouldn’t remove all time constraint linked to food, it would definitely lighten it. How would you use this additional free-time then? In this perspective, the diary format was really efficient in making the participants deliver their thoughts and make them dive into the fiction. The results of their writing was a mix between their personal values, coming from today’s society, and the ones of their possible self living in Syns. We also observed some kind of complementarities between the maps and diary activities. The first one was based on discussion to build possible changes, whereas the second was more introspective. It was then interesting to see what each participant retained from the first activity and how they translated it into personal thoughts.
This said, we think that the isometric maps might restrain the participants’ imagination as most of them showed some shyness to draw over the maps. We needed to push a bit the participants in order for them to seize the fictional universe and be able to imagine possible services or objects within the Syns world. This difficulty might also be linked to some initial scepticism about the plausibility of Syns as it seems totally utopist to imagine such a system to become a reality.
NEXT STEPS: CREATING NEW STORIES
In the end, we got quite a lot of insights and leads to explore in order to develop further the Syns universe. This is likely to be our next steps for the project, and for sure we’ll keep you tune with what happens in a near future!
