FMP (4) — IDEATION 1

Topic: Money
Timeframe: 02/10/23–23/11/23
Team: R.Hodge, R.Suri, T.Singh & Myself

READ EARLIER WEEKS OF THE PROJECT HERE: FMP 1 / FMP 2 / FMP 3

OVERVIEW

Money represents power and control, and carries symbolic significance beyond its fundamental function as a medium of exchange. Due to its unavoidability, money is part of our identity, and a fundamental aspect of how we comprehend our social interactions, the world and our place in it.

Having completed the research phase, we moved to ideation, approaching it from a variety of angles and modes of design — conceptual, material, speculative — to situate our project among our findings. We considered plenty avenues, executed some, failed at most, learned from all.

we engaged with a variety of ideation methods — mind-mapping, crazy 8s, body-storming, speculative scenario building, we prompted ChatGPT to spew out something, that could spark an idea.

This week, we focused on approaching money as a system of control and 'oppression', by situating them within a fictitious cult. Thought abandoned quickly, it helped us consider the nature of control within our relationship with money and surface how deeply the inter-mingle with money goes. This inspired our first prototyped concept — escape the cult campaign.

The incredible learning moments on the nature of conviction, creative activism and future-building overshadowed the lack of success of this iteration.

DESIGN PROCESS

'MAYBE YOU CAN ESCAPE YOUR MONEY' (ACTIVATION CAMPAIGN)

Our cult design venture highlighted, that to a certain degree, this world is a money cult. We are dependent on money and our spending is monitored — targeted ads specifically, made us think about the digital transaction footprint and the identity it creates for us.

Is it possible to escape?

Designing for a way out, we looked towards camapaign design, activism, manifesto-writing (which highlights the spaces in the system which trap us) and leverage points which could start chipping away at the matrix.

I wrote out the letters with our story and message (manifesto) by hand, to connect with people on a personal level. the massage (definitely needs more work) leans on strong imagery and pompous expressive language to evoke the feel of revolutionary speeches.

Letter-writing, as our chosen tool of activism, also creates the space for letter-writing campaign — getting supporters together to partake in writing the letters and spreading the word in a ripple effect of disconnect from the matrix. Letter-writing has long been a tool of activism which helps citizens reach out to elected officials or voice concers about violation of human rights.

This campaign element is inspired by the practice of blackout poetry. This creative practices creates new meaning from the text which is already there, through a method of reduction (blackout). Blackout method felt metaphorically fitting, as we were also attempting to highlight exploitation/the matrix through a method of reduction (of your digital footprint).

On a practical level it allowed us to repurpose old material, avoid creating new waste, and come to possession of unique campaign posters.

Leftover bank was undoubtedly the most actionable effort. It was a way to collate many digital transactions into one and thus reduce the digital matrix — creating a default email address and circulating it around a specific neighbourhood, would run all (for ex.) tesco transactions through one clubcard and skew the digital footprint.

Imagine this: if all on brixton’s tesco transactions ran through a single clubcard, the matrix of my personal transactions would be non-existent. there would be no personal matrix, there would be just a nondescript brixton matrix.

CRITICAL REFLECTION & LEARNINGS

ACTIVISM AS SPECULATION
Our campaign was designed to be a path towards a more desirable future1. And while we knew how we can get there, we were not quite solid on what 'there' looks like — we lacked a scenario with a sense of context and consequence, which made our efforts weak. If I was to do it again, I would:

• choose a micro context to critique through the campaign such as: digital matrix kills the freedom of choice — did i buy this because i saw it online, or did i see this online because i recently bought this?
• campaign around the consequence through contrast — i stay (dark) or i leave (optimistic) — to inspire change

Conviction is not enough, and when lacking a solid sense of context and consequence, the line between activism and cult grows very blurry [the obsession with your one singular goal, the strong conviction of your one singular truth, the efforts to gather followers…]. In larger context it made me wonder, whether this could partly be the reason why a lot of activism efforts fail nowadays — world is getting increasingly more complex, the contexts to be solved are becoming more difficult to define, and without that and a solid sense of consequence, activism is but a preachy stab in the dark. Perhaps speculative design can offer a perspective for campaign and activism design.

ACTIVISM AS CO-CREATION
I am happy we tried, because as a design exercise, it felt very productive — a creative approach to finding alternative ways of looking at our project and ideate solutions. For example, writing the manifesto made me push our identified problem to the extreme. This created a space for imagination and intervention between now and the new now. It made me appreciate how campaigns find creative ways to conceptualise situations, mediate solutions and make people think (or laugh).

I can see this creative potential of activism 'as a design method' expanded through co-futuring and participatory design — we are we are all involved in the future, we should all be involved in its making2. Participatory approach to 'activism design' would create space for a shared and iterative context&consequence discovery, thus side-stepping the questionable cult-like preaching practices.

READ OUR NEXT ITERATIONS AND THE FOLLOWING WEEKS OF THE PROJECT HERE: FMP 5 / FMP 6 / FMP 7 / FMP 8 / FMP 9