aron
@aronshelton
Designing and navigating various contextual arrangements with an enigmatic sense of hope. #wayfinder
aron
I'm so thankful that I'm an addict and that I'm an alcoholic, because I have these people. And without that addiction and alcoholism and without coming to the point where I could admit that, I don't know that I would have ever had a bond with such an amazing group of people as this. And it's awesome because it's not just here. It's not just in the
... See moreDespite the presumption that we're each in our own algorithmic bubbles, served up bespoke content — when something strikes a nerve, our networked lives ensure the signal travels instantaneously. It reaches all. Sometimes: the good. Often: the bad. And most likely of all: the ugly.
Matt Klein • Balenciaga, Sad Dogs & Provocative Marketing
Like physics, futures studies are also intrinsically embracing uncertainty as it is emphatically underlined by Amara’s three laws of futures (Amara, 1981): (1) the future is not predetermined, (2) the future is not predictable, and (3) the future outcomes can be influenced by our choices in the present. […]
Patrick Tanguay • Expanding the Futures Cone’s Concept of the Futures and the Pasts ⊗ Reading as Counter-Practice ⊗ A Bot that Watched 70,000 Hours of Minecraft Videos
Connection and
Designing Friction
designingfriction.com
design and
We like to see designing friction as a fundamental design principle when working with digital culture. Instead of following design ethics that strive to eliminate friction we suggest to not only allow, but embrace friction, facilitate it: design [products with] digital technology in a way that makes space for our humanness. Here friction is a core ingredient. Digital technology should create environments and situations in which we can truly connect with each other, as well as with the unknown, the uncontrolled, with all senses, all elements, all emotions. Create situations that are not calculated beforehand, predicted and measured; situations that result from and amount to the present moment.
We often assume that the world of today would stun a visitor from fifty years ago. In truth, for every miraculous iPad there are countless partly broken realities: WiFi passwords, connectivity, battery life, privacy and compatibility amongst others. The real skill of creating a compelling and engaging view of the future lies not in designing the... See more
Nick Foster • The Future Mundane - Core77
A protocol is a relatively simple and codified set of behaviors that, when adopted by a sufficient number of participants (human and/or artificial) in a situation, reliably leads to good-enough outcomes for all.
Venkatesh Rao • The Unreasonable Sufficiency of Protocols
Seven thoughts on ritual:
Rituals are the feedback loops we construct to construct ourselves.
Rituals shape the medium of time.
Rituals orient us.
Rituals are protocols.
Ritual is a form of play.
Rituals take place in a world set apart.
Rituals make meaning.
We need ritual technology. Technology designed for ritual use. Why? Most of the software we use daily is designed to engagement-max. Social media feeds, loot boxes, compulsion loops, gang gang yes yes yes ice cream so good. You’re caught in a feedback loop with the algorithm, and you are the squishiest part of that loop. Ritual technology operates on a different timescale. Underneath the fast twitch of compulsion loops is the slow thrum of ritual. Elder feedback systems. An antidote to algorithmic engagement addiction?
“It matters what matters we use to think other matters with; it matters what stories we tell to tell other stories with; it matters what knots knot knots, what thoughts think thoughts, what descriptions describe descriptions, what ties tie ties. It matters what stories make worlds, what worlds make stories.“ - Donna J. Haraway, Staying with the
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