Robyn Huiting, Nathalie Kamp, Youp Ferket, Floris Thoonen, Anusha Ravishankar, Vere Vreeswijk, Elke van Dael, Hanna van Rixtel, Hongbin Su, Bram Willems, Kaj Coolen, Geert Boer, Hao-Xuan Lu, Jules van Gurp, Bente Derksen, Leqi Wang, Enzo Li, Ioana Stefanescu, Luna Snelder, Lenneke Kuijer, Emilia Viaene, Dan Lockton
Timeslip 2028 provides a vision of how life could be 15 years from now. We combined speculative design and experiential futures with insights from the humanities, social sciences, and fiction. When imagining āthe futureā we never act in isolation, we āimagineā in a broad sociological and cultural context that influences what we believe to be possible or desirable.
As designers, and together with technological innovations, we are in a position to make āourā visions of futures come into being However, in the context of a world facing significant crises and transitions in climate, health, inequality, social justice, and biodiversity loss, how can we responsibly negotiate these vast questions ?
The project responds to three broad challenges: The Time-Travellers, imagining being sent back from 2038 to 2023 to āinterveneā; Meet The (Un)Predictables, tackling imaginaries of lifestyles in future smart homes; and Challenging consumerism by design, offering alternatives to the ātechno-hedonist personaā. Full details of each challenge can be found on the website.
We investigated the following topics:
- Will you work for Future X:Ā selling your soul to capitalism and forsaking a sustainable future?
- Childrenās book from the future: What if your future child sends you a book to read?
- Morning Assist: Finding the best AI system to achieve optimal health.
- Virtual Nanny: Will you outsource raising your children to AI that āknows bestā?
- Powerless politics: How would you choose to live without electricity?
- HeartRinse: If technology convenience leads to separation in relationships, what can we do to connect with others in the future?
Some projects directly address sustainability and climate issues, while others tackle other topics against the backdrop of a rapidly changing world. Mainstream design education and practice often carry taken-for-granted ideas about relations between design and changes in everyday life. These are usually centred on a model of āusersā which neglects wider societal and cultural dimensions and questions of responsibility. Interaction designers have much to learn from other disciplines in terms of insights on the impact of design on everyday life, and theoretical perspectives on these relations. Equally, designers, by materialising imagination and making it experiential and engageable-with, and using design methods to enable others to imagine and express their own imaginations, have something distinct to offer the field of futures.
