Find the write-up at: http://notura.com/2012/12/manual-for-a-stranger-world/

1. Manual for a
Stranger World
Sjors Timmer

2. We’ve become too
practical
I'm a big fan of agile, prototyping, and lean. I think a hands-on, iterative and getting-
things-done process is great. But we've lost something, the obsession with making
things real, limits the scope of things we can make real. It limits us to what is
possible within the constrains of our current world.

3. Companies, due to their nature, are obsessed with tangible details and their delivery
focussed operations keep us on the path of incremental innovation. We get what we
optimised for, an endless series of extrapolations: faster, lighter, bigger, cheaper. All
very useful, but what about a different world?

4. A stranger
world
What about a space far beyond the horizon of the next sprint, the next launch, the
next round of funding? A world of dreams, of ideas, a stranger world?

5. artist,
visionary,
architect
In architecture there is the curious role for the visionary/artist/architect. Names like
Superstudio, Archigram and Lebbues Woods are better known for what they
imagined than for what they build.

6. Superstudio

7. Archigram

8. Lebbeus Woods

9. They investigate systems,
challenge the rules that govern
us, and turn answers into
questions
By questioning the system as a whole, by challenging the structures that govern us,
they turned well worn answers into fresh questions, they created a space to imagine,
a framework to dream.

10. Constant
One of my favourite artist is Constant, originally a painter in the Cobra movement,
later a writer/painter with the Situationist and eventually an architect of supposed
realities. He is best known for New Babylon, a fi"teen year long project exploring
new ways of being.

11. New Babylon
New Babylon is based on the premises that through automatisation nobody will
have to work, and being freed from work, you are also liberated from living close to
work. This leaves humanity free to roam the planet, free to unleash unbounded
creativity and become Homo Ludens - the playing human.

12. New Babylon
To explore his ideas Constant made models and paintings, gave lectures and wrote
articles.

13. New Babylon

14. ART ARCHITECTURE
He placed himself in a grey borderland between art and architecture; giving you
enough to start thinking but never enough to come to a conclusion.

15. New Babylon, perhaps, is not so
much a picture of the future as a
leitmotiv – Constant

16. Rather than stipulating
building forms, [...] it suggests
possibilities: ‘This is how it
might look’ – Constant

17. Microso"t
He is thereby different from the all too familiar corporate future visions, where even
utopias are created through customer surveys and focus groups. Visions, where the
future feels uncannily familiar, a prescriptive path, instead of a wide open ocean.

18. Nokia

19. now future
Most companies take a point in the future

20. now future
Focus on it, and close down all possible other options

21. now future
Where instead, we should pick a point in the future

22. now future
And open things up

23. So, what does that
mean for interaction
design?
What does this mean for us? Similar to Constant we should aim to create building
blocks that can be used to make more questions. We should take something abstract
and make it visible without turning it into a plan.

24. Timo Arnall/Berg – Immaterials: the ghost in the field

25. Timo Arnall – Nearness

26. Brett Victor – Up and down the ladder of abstraction

27. Brett Victor – Inventing on principle

28. Three guidelines for
a stranger world
How can we create spaces that allow us to dream and wonder, how can we start
building a stranger world? Designers are well positioned to take a leading role, being
skilled both in theory and practice and capable of articulating ideas by combining
visualisations, models and theory, they can create ideas that others can use as a
starting point to dream differently.

29. 1. make it
Personal
Any interesting change has to come from real people, individuals who personally
and passionately feel that things can and should be different. It is up to us, the
people, to imagine our own futures.

30. 2. make it
Thoughtful &
Visual
There's no shortage of opinions, nor is there a shortage of people making pretty
pictures. Though what is needed are thoughtful ideas presented in a visual manner.

31. 3. make it
Open
Since we cannot think any further than our current culture, we should create points
to start from. We should give the people from future what we got from those in the
past: building blocks for thought, ready for endless recombinations in ever stranger
ways.

32. Thank you
Sjors Timmer
@sjors

33. Find more
Slide 1, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 20, 22: Constant's New Babylon: The Hyper-architecture of Desire By Mark Wigley
page 33, 108, 121, 198
http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=L7P_IXPXt98C check also: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qJsD6RvuP"I
Slide 3: Apple iMac http://www.apple.com/uk/imac/design/
Slide 7: De verloochening van Petrus, Rembrandt Harmensz. van Rijn, 1660: https://www.rijksmuseum.nl/en/
collection/SK-A-3137
Slide 9: Superstudio: http://designmuseum.org/design/superstudio
Slide 10: Archigram: http://archigram.westminster.ac.uk/index.php
Slide 11: Lebbeus Woods: http://lebbeuswoods.wordpress.com/
Slide 21: New Babylon: the world of Homo Ludens - Constant: http://www.notbored.org/homo-ludens.html
Slide 23: New Babylon: 10 years on - Constant: http://www.notbored.org/ten-years-on.html
Slide 24: Microso"t Future Vision: http://www.microso"t.com/office/vision/
Slide 25: Nokia Future Vision: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A4pDf7m2UPE
Slide 31: Immaterials: the ghost in the field: http://www.nearfield.org/2009/10/immaterials-the-ghost-in-the-
field
Slide 32: Nearness: http://www.nearfield.org/2009/09/nearness
Slide 33: Up and down the ladder of abstraction: http://worrydream.com/LadderOfAbstraction/
Slide 34: Inventing on principle: https://vimeo.com/36579366