‘The Subversion of Paradoxes’ — A 2018 Retrospective: Part II (Ch. 7/10)
Chapter 7— Creative Partnerships to Imagine Better Futures for Learning, Digital Media & Cities
Ahead of the upcoming 5th anniversary edition of IAM Weekend (March 21–23, 2019 in Barcelona), in this 10-chapter retrospective we recap the key learnings, activities and next steps that emerged from our 2018 research theme: The Subversion of Paradoxes. In this chapter we share the creative partnerships that IAM launched during the year.
As we mentioned in Chapter 1, an important element of IAM’s practice as an alternative think-tank are creative partnerships which allow us to transform the critical, planetary and long-term thinking into shareable experiments and initiatives, to enable open inclusive and safe spaces where diverse perspectives can participate, discuss and create collectively by using the research theme and topics as canvasses and futures as tools.
These creative partnerships start with the curiosity of agents of change leading innovation and digital transformation processes inside cultural institutions, media organisations, global brands or universities. Usually they approach us after attending one of our events and we start an open conversation about their challenges or plans and the common ground that has with our research, approach or existing initiatives.
We then design, in a collaborative way, a journey which often starts with a debrief, followed by agreeing on a vision, shared principles and goals. Once the foundations and ambitions of the partnership are set, we bring outsider perspectives that challenge, inspire and provoke the organisation, enabling a better understanding of the context. This exchange leads to the invention stage where we design agile ways to develop concepts, narratives, prototypes and also experiences to gather feedback and distill key insights.
Using this approach, in 2018 we developed three creative partnerships, translating the big (and small) ideas behind ‘The Subversion of Paradoxes’ into an experimental learning programme inside Europe’s largest arts & design school, an early prototype of a mobile app that allow young people with mental health issues to use their phones in conscious and healthier ways, and a social innovation platform using tech to tackle social challenges in cities as Madrid or Barcelona.
Learn more about these creative partnerships below:
a) IAM x UAL Futures Studio 2030
b) IAM x BBC: How To Fix The Internet
c) IAM x Red Bull Basement
a) IAM x UAL Futures Studio 2030
The challenge
We’ve been working with UAL already since 2015. We’ve done multiple events in London and they have participated in all 4 editions of IAM Weekend in Barcelona. Most importantly, we created together the UAL Futures Studio initiative. Here you can learn more about the background story and outputs of the 2017 editions.
For 2018, after the key learnings collected from the studios we designed around the The Renaissance of Utopias, feminism & the internet, we had the challenge of scaling up these experimental learning studios, from 2 weeks to 5 months and from a couple dozen to 50+ participants!
The journey
After a successful open call, where hundreds of students from across the six colleges applied, in late October 2017 we launched the IAM x UAL Futures Studio 2030. The first weeks, we gathered and met all the participants, creating collectively a studio manifesto and reaching consensus on a set of principles. We then presented the group with an epic challenge: creating a youth-driven post-technological agenda, an alternative to the one the UN has set for 2030 around the Sustainable Development Goals, along with creative responses, to be presented in a summit in March and then in April at IAM Weekend 18.
We brought in learning partners as the BBC, Its Nice That or The Future Laboratory and celebrated a Critical Xmas Bizarre Bazaar before the winter break. With a few weeks left before showtime, the teams worked on research, prototypes, videos and narratives responding to a post-technological framework connected to ‘The Subversion of Paradoxes’ theme.
The outcomes
Four planetary futures goals. Four post-tech movements. A transformative experience for students, educators and learning partners. A deep understanding of the attitudes, behaviours, and anxieties driving young people, so that the UAL can better design student experience.
Learn more about the outcomes below and watch the final presentation given at IAM Weekend 18:
b) IAM x BBC: How To Fix The Internet
The challenge
After attending IAM Weekend 17, Jane Murison, Head of UXP & Design at BBC Future Media Planning and Kate Coughlan, Head of BBC Design & Engineering & BBC News reached us with an exciting opportunity: to help them develop creative responses on an extensive research they had commissioned, aiming to learn more about the human experience of digital media. The main question underlaying this challenge was:
How might we help individuals make more conscious, intellectual choices about consumption in their lives?
The journey
The journey of this creative partnership started in January 2018 with an insightful session at the BBC headquarters, where we set together the vision, goals, expectations and principles of the project. After a deep-dive into the research we identified several paradoxes, which were a perfect fit for subversion and created a private creative jam (similar to the one we did in 2016 with Tate) where we invited a group of artists, independent journalists, speculative designers, art critics, strategists and BBC staff to work during 1,5 days in a reframed version of the challenge:
How might we empower and learn from individuals and collectives to make more and better conscious intentional choices about their lives through media?
The BBC x IAM creative jam list of participants included:
- Elijah, DJ and Grime producer
- Zarina Muhammad, Art critic, co-founder of The White Pube
- Maks Fus Mickiewicz, Creative Director of TREMORS.TV and former youth culture editor at The Future Laboratory
- Ted Hunt, independent speculative/discursive/critical designer
- Tina Gorjanc, critical and speculative scenario designer
- Annelise Keestra, communication, interaction and visual designer
- Eliza Anyangwe, freelance writer and the founder of The Nzinga Effect
- Luisa Le Voguer Couyet, writer, artist,DJ and Editor of Hate Zine
After an intensive and insightful co-ideation session, the trans-disciplinary groups presented three visual prototypes, got feedback from different BBC teams and finally IAM recruited a team of designers to create an early prototype of one of this concepts which was presented at IAM Weekend 18.
The outcomes
The BBC decided to frame this creative partnership with a suggestive and ambitious title: “How To Fix The Internet” and present it through a talk, a workshop and demo during our annual event, where hundreds tested the app concept, gathering valuable feedback on the next steps for the BBC.
While the outputs of the process and the experiment were kept for internal use only, the project has been also shared in events as Techfestival and the IBC– International Broadcasting Convention, engaging more professionals in the relevant topics that this creative partnership explored.
c) IAM x Red Bull Basement
The challenge
After hosting IAM’s first pop-up event in Latin America in September 2017 at Red Bull Station in Sao Paulo, and presenting this amazing cultural initiative in IAM Weekend 17, the global energy drink brand reached us with a very special invitation in late 2017: to join as strategic partner for the launch of their social innovation platform in Spain: Red Bull Basement.
The challenges as strategic partners were to help them define a long-term vision and align other partners, design the launch events and residency program, advise the content & editorial strategy, bring together different communities, mentors and key partners and identify potential candidates for the first year of the program across the country through an open call.
The journey
In close collaboration with the Social Innovation & Culture Marketing Manager of Red Bull in Spain, we created a series of workshops and events with the other key partners in Madrid (IED Innovation Lab) and Barcelona (IAAC — Institute for Advanced Architecture of Catalonia) shaping the first year of Red Bull Basement in Spain, one of the first countries where this global platform is activated after a successful pilot in Brazil. You can read more details on these launch events below:
The initiative was also presented during IAM Weekend 18, with a short presentation, a workshop and an installation made by Flan, one of the mentors specialised in digital fabrication.
Four teams were selected for the residency program held in Madrid, where in less than 2 months the teams were mentored and guided to create advanced prototypes and future roadmaps of their social innovation projects.
The outcomes
The first year of Red Bull Basement in Spain, has been recognised by the company headquarters as the best activation of the initiative in the world , and is being used as the model and reference for other countries.
The first four promising projects with extremely talented and motivated teams are ready to enter a second phase looking for investors and partners to kickstart their visions, and a growing community of mentors, institutions and collaborators around an alternative take on social innovation is getting ready for the second year of Red Bull Basement.
Below you can learn more about the projects and the teams behind them
(text, audio and subtitles in Spanish)
Thanks to the agents of change that made all of this possible: Luke Whitehead, Georgina Capdevila, Charlotte Webb, David White at UAL, Kate Coughlan, Jane Murison, Dan Ramsden, Emily Hawes at BBC and Francisco Suárez, Eva Fernández at Red Bull Spain.
‘The Subversion of Paradoxes’ — A 2018 Retrospective is a 10-chapter retrospective where we recap the key learnings, activities and next steps that emerged from IAM’s 2018 research theme.
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👉 Join us for IAM Weekend 19, our annual meeting for creative agents of change who care about the futures of the internet(s) where you can discover, be inspired and interconnect with diverse perspectives around our research theme for 2019: ‘The Quantumness of Archipelagos’.
