This talk was given at Data Ecologies 2014 in Linz, Austria. It focuses on creation of artifacts and narratives that communicate 'mundane' futures. Key case study discussed was Winning Formula, a sports paper from 2018 developed for FutureEverything (http://winningformula.nearfuturelaboratory.com).

1. U N S H O C K I N G T H E F U T U R E
D A TA E C O L O G I E S 2 0 1 4
S C O T T S M I T H
C H A N G E I S T

4. - B R U C E S T E R L I N G , I N T E R A C T I O N S M A G A Z I N E , M AY / J U N E 2 0 0 9 !
May/June 2009
“Design seeks out ways to jump over its own
conceptual walls—scenarios, user observation,
brainstorming, rapid prototyping, critical design,
speculative design.”

5. Corning “World Made of Glass”

6. Microsoft Future of Productivity

7. Google — “The Talking Shoe”

9. Meaning Economy — IDEO “Made in the Future”

10. - N I C K F O S T E R , N E A R F U T U R E L A B O R AT O RY, “ T H E F U T U R E M U N D A N E ”
"When designing for the future, designers regularly
design for the hero, a trickle-down aspirational super-
user intended to give us all something to hope for.
But perhaps we could, for once, design for those
innumerable, un-named characters of Hollywood, the
extras or ‘background talent.’"

11. “Monopoly of Legitimate Use” — Tobias Revell

12. “Corner Convenience” — Near Future Laboratory

13. CBS TV — “The Good Wife”

14. P R O B A B L E
P L A U S I B L E
P O S S I B L E

15. P R O B A B L E
P L A U S I B L E
P O S S I B L E
*“Day Made of Glass”
*“Corner Convenience”
*
*
“Talking Shoe”
“Human Cheese”
* “Black Mirror”

16. P R O B A B L E
P L A U S I B L E
P O S S I B L E
*“Day Made of Glass”
*“Corner Convenience”
*“Human Cheese”
*
“Talking Shoe”
* “Black Mirror”

36. U N S H O C K E D F U T U R E S …
• …examine—and are embedded within—complex systems
• …explore subtleties more than extremities
• …provide an experiential on-ramp for the non-professional
• …rely less on overt polemic, and more on extrapolation
• ...seeks out entrenchment and recursion as well as advancement
• …calibrate uncanniness
• …guide the audience toward a future

37. - D U N N E & R A B Y, “ S P E C U L AT I V E E V E RY T H I N G ”
“…if it is too weird, it will be dismissed as art, and
if too normal, it will be effortlessly assimilated.”

39. Thank you.
!
@ C H A N G E I S T
!
S S M I T H @ C H A N G E I S T. C O M
!
C H A N G E I S T. C O M
C H A N G E I S T