Future Prehearsals
“Future Preparedness” studies individual and group behaviours in challenging and unpredictable conditions. The case study extends futurist scenario planning with speculative design experiments, improvised role-playing games and meditative practices combined in 'prehearsals' – real life laboratories where future scenarios can be experienced as immersive situations.
Instructions, reviews and overviews
Blog posts about future prehearsal experiments at FoAM
Reflections and instructions on scenario planning by Anna Maria Orru and David Relan:
- Scenario Symphony describing a range of scenario planning tools
- Temporal Model introducing concepts of “passive” and “active” futures in scenarios
- From Pan to Panarchy borrowing from eco-systems theory to add dynamic forces to scenarios
Background research
- Scrapbook with notes including topics as disaster drills, survivalism and speculative fiction
Scenario experiments
So far for FoAM, the method described in The Art of the Long View by Peter Schwartz seems to be the most appropriate and flexible for our needs. We begin with a question or a challenge, map internal and external influences, rank them based on importance and uncertainty, and from there design four probable scenarios. We then turn the scenarios into narratives and mood-boards and from there create a set of instructions for an improvised prehearsal: a cross-breed between a live action role playing game, an attitude-meditation and a real-life lab.
FoAM's scenario planning exercise of which three first ones have been turned into prehearsals): How do we work together on interesting things?
With Anna Maria Orru and David Relan we explored a range of tools in a Scenario Symphony:
- scenario workshop 201205: How do we engage and connect communities through food?
With Patricia Portela and Christophe De Boeck we had a set scenario (new Babylon 2084) and only focused on a short prehearsal:
- Hortus Prehearsal: How did we get to New Babylon?
A possible future of Future Preparedness in Dutch