Dunne & Raby : What it means to prototype?

Design researchers Dunne & Raby brilliant speculative design research.  Worth careful study.

dunne raby speculative everything

See their work for striking ways to present and work through complex systems
using articulatory techniques that complement (not replace):
equational simulations,
animate objects,
forum theater and movement / somatic.

Bioland


on  prototyping: FICTIONAL FUNCTIONS AND FUNCTIONAL FICTIONS

NOT HERE, NOT NOW (VIDEO), 2015
http://dunneandraby.co.uk/content/projects/772/0

PROJECT #26765: FLIRT, 1998-00 (multi-scale)

UMK: LIVES AND LANDSCAPES, 2014

(Thanks to OSK.)

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Sha Xin Wei | skype: shaxinwei | mobile: +1-650-815-9962 | asu.zoom.us/my/shaxinwei
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Thursday Feb 20, 21:00 MST: UNDP + Synthesis: experiential simulations; Alter-Eco

Hi Everyone — 

So we'll videoconference: Thursday Feb 20, 21:00 Phoenix =  Friday Feb 21, 07:00 AM Istanbul = Friday Feb 21, 11:00 AM Bangkok.
Let's use zoom, with Skype as backchannel.  (Please invite me in your Skype if you have it:  shaxinwei.)

Possible Topics

• Next-gen economies NYC April ___?
• Workshops on experiential simulations of complex systems (weather or heatscape) in a UNDP hub or NYC
• Alter-Eco colloquia + workshops  (e.g. Malta Oct 2020, with EGS)
• Placemaking workshops (e.g. Dartington UK)
• Synthesis Prototyping Social Forms
• What’s needed to coordinate and fuel collaborations?

Here are some links for convenience, adding some people links. Sorry for omissions.


Prateeksha Singh, (@WeCreateFutures) Head of Experimentation, Regional Innovation Centre, UNDP Asia Pacific, Bangkok Regional Hub
Giulio Quaggiotto, Head of  Regional Innovation Center, UNDP Asia Pacific, Bangkok Regional Hub
Milica Begovic, Istanbul Regional Hub for Europe and Central Asia, Social innovation, change management; Design thinking, user innovation, citizen engagement, foresight, social network analysis, tech and complexity science and development
Lejla Sadiku, Istanbul Regional Hub for Europe and Central Asia, Open Data, intertwining public policy and technology to improve governance
Onur Atay, Program Manager for UNDP Innovation Days

Looking forward to our chat!
Xin Wei

PS. Ariane, I hope you can come to this one hour earlier tomorrow. :)

On Feb 18, 2020, at 3:48 AM, Milica Begovic <milica.begovic@undp.org> wrote:

Dear Dr Sha
 
When would be a good time to connect?  
 
I’d love to see the work you’ve done on experiential, (whole-body) immersive simulations of weather or of heatscapes + urban structures as vehicles for grappling with more general lessons about complex open-ended systems.  And of course, the Alternative Economy modelling. 
 
Let me know what works please?
Thanks and I really look forward to it!
 
Millie
 
 
From: Xin Wei Sha <Xinwei.Sha@asu.edu>
Date: Monday, February 17, 2020 at 6:00 PM
To: Giulio Quaggiotto <giulio.quaggiotto@undp.org>, Prateeksha Singh <prateeksha.singh@undp.org>, Milica Begovic <milica.begovic@undp.org>
Cc: Brandon Mechtley <bmechtley@asu.edu>, Ariane Middel <amiddel@asu.edu>, Andrew Luna <Andrew.Luna@asu.edu>

 
Dear Giulio, Prateeksha, and Millie, 
 
We also found it very inspiring and encouraging to talk with you and Prateeksha!   We approach this with some modesty, knowing that we rely on the deep experiences of everyone who has been grappling with world-scale matters whose complexity exceeds every expertise.
 
Our basic design approach is to be guided by some anthropological tact, and abductive methodology:
we’ll adapt techniques of articulation and observation as we go, based on access to technoscientific / conceptual / humanistic-artistic know-how.   We set up scenarios in which people can palpably encounter concepts and situations, and articulate their own variation.  This requires some in-depth preparation, so maybe I can start by witnessing present concerns and practices.
 
Let me respond more in detail inline.
 
Looking forward!
Xin Wei
 

On Feb 10, 2020, at 3:59 AM, Giulio Quaggiotto <giulio.quaggiotto@undp.org> wrote:
 
Dear Dr. Sha, all,
 
Thanks again for the call last week and for staying up so late to talk to boring UN bureaucrats!
 
At least on my side, I could not stop thinking about our conversation over the whole weekend. Thanks for the inspiration.
 
A few quick things as a follow up to what we discussed:
 

I mentioned the upcoming Istanbul Innovation Days event (April), which this year is focusing on Next Generation Economies. It’s a bit of a flagship event for us, which this year will involve also the Club of Rome. I mentioned to the organisers our brief exchange around your Alter-Eco work and the lines of inquiry you are pursuing around that. They are very much interested in following up with you to explore potential collaboration opportunities. If of interest, Millie (copied) can provide you with additional background.
 
Millie, thank you for the IID_SB.pdf; the “ Next Generation Economies” vent is tremendously exciting.   What are the dates for this event — and is it in NYC?  (In April 21-25, I will be in Copenhagen.)
 
It’d be great to participate in this discussion, to see how I / Synthesis  can best contribute this time around.  Perhaps we can connect with others interested in prototyping alternative ecology-economies and work on some experiments?
 
Would you like to send some possible times (time zone?)  for a phone or zoom conversation, cc. my assistant Andrew Luna ?
 

New York events/dinners: you mentioned that there might be an opportunity to open up the upcoming events you are planning in NY to UNDP participants. I already talked to Haoliang Xu, our Assistant Secretary General in NY and there’s definitely interest in pursuing this opportunity, if you think it’s feasible/appropriate, as a way to educate our senior managers on the possibilities opened up by your work. This is very much in line with our ambition to begin the journey of building new competencies to operate in complex systems. Grateful if you could let us know whether this might be something we can pursue (and if so, what would be the best way to make it all happen). Independently of the events, Haoliang has expressed interest in meeting with you when you are in NY, if you are available.
 
The events are still indeterminate, which is good.  We tailor the format and content of participatory events to the concerns and capacities of the participants.  The formats we’re considering include: (1) an “augmented" meal as a setting for informal but in-depth facilitated conversation, (2) an immersive “blackbox" space in which people can explore realtime responsive simulations of atmosphere or heatscapes.   This depends on local partnerships and sponsorships.
 

“Anthropology” of UNDP: we had some initial internal brainstorming around what/where might be the most useful conversations for you to be part of as a way to understand our current thinking and way of operating. We have at least a few organizational “use cases”/scenarios which we think might be helpful for you to be part of to assess how best the Synthesis center can help us moving forward. Happy to explore options around your upcoming trip to China (corona virus permitting!) or otherwise explore other dates for you to visit Bangkok and/or one of our country offices? 
 
The trip to Tsinghua and Central Academy of Fine Arts in Beijing, which was set for early May, has been postponed due to the corona virus.  
 
Perhaps we can get a sense of current practices by witnessing work in whichever UNDP setting is most convenient and relevant.   
 

Again, our interest would be to eventually come up with some form of activity (workhop/training) that we can use to help colleagues (and government counterparts) have meaningful conversations around operating in complex systems (1. Why more data is not necessarily helpful; 2. What are the connections/interdependencies that our linear planning does not allow us to see; 3. What are options that we could explore that are equally plausible given the current state but we don’t usually consider, etc.)
 
Yes!  To be more effective, we’ll do some pedagogical preparation sensitive to the audience’s experience and expertises.   As we discussed, we could use the existing richly developed experiential, (whole-body) immersive simulations of weather or of heatscapes + urban structures as vehicles for grappling with more general lessons about complex open-ended systems.  
 
Or we could partner to design and compose some participatory, improvisatory events in which people can articulate alternative social forms, and prototype them at lifescale.  This would be a longer process, but this is what we’re prepared to engage in, with partners who have scenarios to explore, and who can marshal support for grappling with them.
 

Finally, grateful if you could share the dates of the October workshop in Malta if you have them already – never too early to put it on our radarscreen (assuming of course it’s open to our participation).

 
Let me consult the European Graduate School with which Synthesis co-convened the Alter-Eco colloquium last year.  I’m pretty sure the EGS would very much welcome this.   We need everyone at the table. 
 
Speaking of this, my senior advisors — Gary Dirks and Sander van Der Leeuw, at ASU — have both suggested engaging with the Club of Rome …
 
Sander van Der Leeuw, Social Sustainability, Past and Future, Undoing Unintended Consequences for the Earth's Survival (2020)
 

Thanks again for your time and consideration. Much appreciated.
 
Kind regards,
 

Giulio


From: Giulio Quaggiotto <giulio.quaggiotto@undp.org>
Subject: RE: Exploring possibilities: Reaching out from the UNDP Asia Pacific Regional Innovation Center
Date: February 6, 2020 at 3:23:58 AM MST
To: sxw asu <sxwasu@gmail.com>, Prateeksha Singh <prateeksha.singh@undp.org>, Ariane Middel <ariane.middel@asu.edu>, Brandon Mechtley <bmechtley@asu.edu>
Cc: Ariane Middel <amiddel@asu.edu>, Todd Ingalls <Todd.Ingalls@asu.edu>, Andrew Luna <Andrew.Luna@asu.edu>

Thank you! Very much looking forward to it. If I may add one link, perhaps this post might provide a bit of additional background for our conversation tomorrow. We developed a sensemaking protocol for UNDP staff dealing with complex development challenges and we are now thinking of how to augment it with additional tools (experiential, 3d, etc.) that can help decision making in complex environments.

 

 

From: sxw asu <sxwasu@gmail.com>
Sent: Thursday, February 6, 2020 5:17 PM
To: Prateeksha Singh <prateeksha.singh@undp.org>; Giulio Quaggiotto <giulio.quaggiotto@undp.org>; Ariane Middel <ariane.middel@asu.edu>; Brandon Mechtley <bmechtley@asu.edu>
Cc: Ariane Middel <amiddel@asu.edu>; sxw asu <sxwasu@gmail.com>; Todd Ingalls <Todd.Ingalls@asu.edu>; Andrew Luna <Andrew.Luna@asu.edu>
Subject: Re: Exploring possibilities: Reaching out from the UNDP Asia Pacific Regional Innovation Center

 

Dear Prateeksha, Giulio, Brandon, Ariane,

 

Looking forward to our videoconference by zoom at 730 pm MST = 9:30 pm EST February 6.
(Bangkok 9:30 am February 7, I believe).

 

Here are some links for convenience:

 

UNDP's Asia Pacific Regional Innovation Center based out of Bangkok, Thailand
Head of Regional Innovation Center, Giulio Quaggiotto

Experimentation / United Nations Development Programme Asia Pacific, Regional Innovation Centre

For the record, Brandon, Ariane and I zoomed with:

Prateeksha Singh, Head of Experimentation / United Nations Development Programme (UNDP).Asia Pacific, Regional Innovation Centre
and 
Giulio Quaggiotto, Head of Regional Innovation Center, UNDP Asia Pacific; MIT Research fellow (formerly Nesta UK )

They reached out to Synthesis, thanks to our Participatory Steering of Complex Adaptive Systems initiative with Alex Penn (Surrey UK), Beth Cullen (Monsoon Assemblage, India UK), Alex Smaijgl (Bangkok), Petra Ahrweiler (Mainz), Jesús M. Siqueiros García (UNaM Mexico)

Here are some links for convenience:

sensemaking protocol for UNDP staff dealing with complex development challenges and we are now thinking of how to augment it with additional tools (experiential, 3d, etc.) that can help decision making in complex environments:


 I am with the UNDP's Asia Pacific Regional Innovation Center based out of Bangkok, Thailand. Our team is uniquely positioned as the only regional innovation center within the global UNDP ecosystem, and our work cuts across a number of portfolios from supporting anticipatory governance at a national policy level, to getting regional offices to shift in their work from single point projects to wider systemic transformation portfolio's within specific problem areas (and development challenges).
 
We came across the Synthesis Center and your work via this Beth Cullen blog entry called " SENSING, SYNTHESISING, STEERING – A VISIT TO ARIZONA" and wanted to see if we could discuss how the environments you are creating could help us with our interactions with governments – or perhaps explore having a customized version of the training your ran for Beth Cullen and co. We are also thinking of participatory steering for complex systems and are proactively looking for a partner who can help us with the visualization/sensory component of that process. To that effect, would you be open to having conversation with my team, including the Head of Regional Innovation Center, Giulio Quaggiotto?
 
I really look forward to hearing from you. Thank you so much for your time and incredible work as a collective.
 
Warmly,
Prateeksha 
 
 
Prateeksha Singh
Head of Experimentation, Regional Innovation Centre
Bangkok Regional Hub
United Nations Development Programme
3rd Floor United Nations Service Building
Rajdamnern Nok Avenue, Bangkok 10200, Thailand
prateeksha.singh@undp.org
Cell.: +66 64 009 4346 (BKK)
Skype: prateeksha.singh

with:

Brandon Mechtley, PhD
Assistant Research Professor
Synthesis / synthesis.ame.asu.edu
School of Arts, Media and Engineering / ame.asu.edu


Ariane Middel, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor
School of Arts, Media and Engineering (AME) | School of Computing, Informatics, and Decision Systems Engineering (CIDSE)
@ASUMaRTy
950 S. Forest Mall, Stauffer B258 
@ArianeMiddel

Sha Xin Wei, PhD
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TEDx Ecosystemic Design • Synthesis 2019 Research-Creation
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Sha Xin Wei • Professor + Director School of Arts, Media and Engineering • Synthesis 
Herberger Institute for Design and the Arts + Fulton Schools of Engineering • ASU
Senior Fellow Building21 McGill • Fellow ASU-Santa Fe Center for Biosocial Complex Systems • Learning Alliance
Professor European Graduate School • Associate Editor AI & Society Journal • Founding Director Topological Media Lab
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See also:

Dr Alex Smajgl

Managing Director

Mekong Region Futures Institute (MERFI)

399 Interchange 21  (32nd floor), Sukhumvit Rd

North Klongtoey, Wattana

Bangkok, 10110 Thailand

+66 (0) 95657 1200

 
Managing Director

Sustainable Futures Institute Australia (SFIA)

Melbourne, Australia

+61 411571762

 

Adjunct Professor

Deakin University

Burwood – Melbourne Campus

221 Burwood Hwy, Burwood VIC 3125 

 

Lithopia / Lithopy: a design fiction nightmare of a blockchain+drone-powered transaction-based village economy

http://www.brokennature.org/lithopia-prototyping-blockchain-futures/


Lithopia: Prototyping Blockchain Futures

By  | July 4, 2019

EDITOR’S NOTE: Lithopy, curated by Denisa Kera and Petr Šourek along with a second project entitled Out of Power Tower, represents the Czech participation in the XXII Triennale di Milano, Broken Nature. The projects arise from a survey centered on the significant mineral resources of the Czech territory––in particular, lithium. Lithopy questions the practice of this mineral’s extraction and its use. The Czech pavilion was commissioned by the Museum of Decorative Arts in Prague with the Ministry of Culture of the Czech Republic.



Lithopia Design Fiction movie scene.

The Lithopia Project1 offers a design method for anticipatory governance7 of emerging blockchain and DLTs that goes against the current hype of anticipatory and frictionless design promises of full control over user decisions2,11. Instead of predicting user needs that ultimately serve one version of the (industry defined) future, anticipatory prototyping involves the users as stakeholders in the adoption of the emerging technology. It offers templates of blockchain services that present the future scenarios and dilemmas, which can be modified and iterated to support inclusive and democratic “future-making”14,15 that combines prototyping with deliberation.


The Lithopia prototyping templates consist of a dashboard featured on Figure 1 and a design fiction scenario (Figure 2 and 3). While the dashboard integrates the existing social and technical infrastructures (social institutions of marriage and property ownership on the ledger with data from satellites, Hyperledger Fabric REST API, and various open APIs), the design fiction presents exaggerated and artistically rendered use cases that hint at the potential (mis)uses. In this fictional village, some common gestures have unexpected meaning if caught by satellites, and the Lithopians are forced to invent bizarre strategies of hiding under umbrellas to escape their satellites and the blockchain. They also indulge in various techno-superstitions, such as horoscopes of satellite locations, which they use to interpret geopolitical events.


The scenarios are intentionally ambiguous and exaggerated to provoke creative uses of the Lithopia templates on the Github. In the Lithopia context “Sunny days are made for transactions. No clouds prevent satellites from keeping an eye on contracts being made and assets changing hands. People exchange goods, make payments, marry and divorce. All the hustle and bustle of sunny days is recorded by the decentralized digital ledger of the blockchain. Hugs are big and kisses are many to make sure satellites recognize and the blockchain records affection, love, and friendship. In Lithopia, all social contact is a smart contract.”8



Figure 1: Node-RED dashboard for Lithopians connecting various open APIs (Twitter, OpenWeather, and Sentinel2) with the REST API of the Hyperledger. On the dashboard you can follow the current position of the satellite, weather conditions for transactions, communicate with the blockchain (proposing a sale of property, marriage or partnership), follow cryptocurrency exchanges and Twitter sentiment analysis related to Lithium that help business decisions.

Anticipatory prototyping
The Lithopia project serves as an educational tool, but also a participatory probe to critically evaluate the promises of DLTs’ future, in which governance will merge with automation over smart contracts, and we will have a tool to control data tempering, fake news, or even AI simulations. The anticipatory prototypes explicitly connect design with ethical deliberation and policy negotiations by engaging the public directly in the design process rather than predicting user behavior and promising “anticipatory” design.
The prototypes utilize existing open source tools (Hyperledger Fabric and Composer for the blockchain contracts; Node-RED and various open APIs for the dashboard) to create templates on GitHub that support creative and exploratory uses of such technologies. The goal is to help the general public and various stakeholders to understand, experience, experiment with, and deliberate upon the future of blockchain and its integration with other existing technologies.

Blockchain governance and design
While the first decade of blockchain and DLTs was mainly on transactions between humans (Bitcoin blockchain and numerous crypto-alt-currency projects), we are entering a phase that emphasizes integration of these emerging technologies with existing infrastructures and corporate and institutional actors (Ethereum, Ripple, and Corda platforms and protocols) along increasing machine-to-machine transactions, including AI and IoT scenarios (IOTA). The original, libertarian, and crypto-anarchist emphasis on privacy and anonymity of the individuals is transforming into a pragmatic search for convergences of the DLTs with existing social, but also technological, infrastructures (satellites, IoT, banks, and supply chains)4,13 .

...


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The Lure of Whitehead; and Embodiment, Enaction, and Culture, MIT 2017

Two very different references:

The Lure of Whitehead,  Nicholas Gaskill (Editor), A. J. Nocek (Editor), 2014, Minnesota Press.

I think the Introduction  (as well as the rest of the volume) is full of insights pertinent to a lot of what we do — thinking-through-making and movement-as-thought:…   Attached is just the first few pages of the Introduction.

And in a different register”: Embodiment, enaction, and culture : investigating the constitution of the shared world 
Durt, Christoph, Fuchs, Thomas, Tewes, Christian (eds.), 2017, MIT Press.

It’s a contemporary summary of enactivism reaching out from phenomenology toward “culture” — characteristic of the “4E” work from Varela, Thompson onward.  But in light of work by Whitehead, Deleuze et al. please read the latter alert to lots of hidden abstractions — "fallacies of misplaced concreteness” -- with a grain of salt!

*“the expression of more concrete facts under the guise of very abstract logical constructions”



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Sha Xin Wei • skype: shaxinwei • mobile: +1-650-815-9962
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Jakob von Uexküll: oak tree, sheer multiplicity, indeterminacy of subject as objects for other subjects

Jakob von Uexküll: oak tree, cited in D Foerster

…a subject can be a very different object to the perception of other subjects, as Uexküll describes with the example of an oak tree, being an environment for humans, beetles, foxes, birds, and so on:

In the hundred different environments of its inhabitants, the oak plays an ever- changing role as object, sometimes with some parts, sometimes with others. The same parts are alternately large and small. Its wood is both hard and soft; it serves for attack and for defense. If one wanted to summarize all the different characteristics shown by the oak as an object, this would only give rise to chaos. Yet these are only parts of a subject that is solidly put together in itself, which carries and shelters all environments – one which is never known by all the subjects of these environments and never knowable for them.*

Thereby, every organism forms, together with its surroundings, specific contexts of experience…

* Uexküll, Jakob von. A Foray into the Worlds of Animals and Humans: With A Theory of Meaning. University of Minnesota Press ed. Posthumanities 12. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2010, page 132.

Physics without determinism

Hi Emiddio,

The title seemed promising for OPG, but del Santo and Gisin resort to hiding subjectivity inside information theoretic abstractions: e.g. with these definitions:

propensity quantifies the tendency or disposition of the jth binary digit to take the value 1.

finite-information quantity (FIQ) is an ordered list of propensities {q1,q2,··· ,qj,···}, that satisfies:
1. (necessary condition): The information content is finite, i.e. ∑j Ij < ∞, where Ij = 1−H(qj) is the information content

of the propensity, and H is the binary entropy function of its argument. This ensures that the information content of FIQs is bounded from above;
2. (sufficient condition): After a certain threshold, all the bits are completely random, i.e. ∃M(t) ∈ N such that qj=1, ∀j>M(t)

I think del Santo and Gisin are merely addressing a symptom, not getting at the heart of the matter, as do Whitehead, Deleuze and Guattari, David Morris, Noah Brender, Mike Epperson in their quite diverse work.  I do not mean to conform these friends by naming them in one sentence. :)

Physics without determinism: Alternative interpretations of classical physics
Flavio Del Santo and Nicolas Gisin
Phys. Rev. A 100, 062107 – Published 5 December 2019


Classical physics is generally regarded as deterministic, as opposed to quantum mechanics that is considered the first theory to have introduced genuine indeterminism into physics. We challenge this view by arguing that the alleged determinism of classical physics relies on the tacit, metaphysical assumption that there exists an actual value of every physical quantity, with its infinite predetermined digits (which we name principle of infinite precision). Building on recent information-theoretic arguments showing that the principle of infinite precision (which translates into the attribution of a physical meaning to mathematical real numbers) leads to unphysical consequences, we consider possible alternative indeterministic interpretations of classical physics. We also link those to well-known interpretations of quantum mechanics. In particular, we propose a model of classical indeterminism based on finite information quantities (FIQs). Moreover, we discuss the perspectives that an indeterministic physics could open (such as strong emergence), as well as some potential problematic issues. Finally, we make evident that any indeterministic interpretation of physics would have to deal with the problem of explaining how the indeterminate values become determinate, a problem known in the context of quantum mechanics as (part of) the “quantum measurement problem”. We discuss some similarities between the classical and the quantum measurement problems, and propose ideas for possible solutions (e.g., “collapse models” and “top-down causation”).