idle gaze research ethos
Designers and strategists working toward preferable futures must recognize that technical forecasting and trend analysis are not enough. Imagination is what allows alternatives to emerge—alternatives that are often suppressed by dominant narratives of innovation, growth and inevitability. When imagination is reclaimed as a civic and political... See more
Practical imagination
In futures studies, imagination is often described as the precondition for anticipation: we can only shape futures we are able to imagine. Without imagination, we remain trapped within the constraints of the present, repeating and refining what already exists.
Practical imagination
- Foresight has a trend problem — today’s trend hunting is largely a by-product of a linear, mechanistic, and extractive system that hopes to profit off of the “next big thing,” and is also mired in a hyper-masculine perspective of what’s important or what should be examined.
- Foresight has a time problem — “This or that will happen in the next 1, 3,
The Future Thinker’s Dilemma
Paradoxically, the most reliable method to envision and plan for futures, isn’t just studying and extrapolating scientific facts, historical developments, psychology and demography, but by building stories beyond our wildest imagination.
Marjolein Pijnappels • Designing the Future Using Science Fiction
research itself has to be reframed. It can’t remain a matter of collecting what looks good together on a slide. The point is to look for what interrupts it. Research at its best is digging for undercurrents: overlooked symbols, overlooked artists, gems in history, overlooked media. It’s about training your eye to notice what feels unresolved, then... See more
Zoë Yasemin • The Reference Trap
Researching isn’t just a way of finding facts. It’s a way of finding voice. Of sculpting meaning out of uncertainty. I don’t research to be right. I research to feel closer—to myself, to a question, to an idea that won't let me go.
g.m. • How To Research Niche Ideas in Literature and Philosophy
Research is an art. A soft craft. A quiet ritual. (…) To research is to follow a scent. (…) What I learned from all this is simple: surface-level searches won’t do. You need to dig. You need to get creative. (…) Saved it. It became a breadcrumb for later. (…) Bibliographies are treasure maps. Follow the names. Follow the hyperlinks. Find the
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