The Future Starts Here

What if… it was our decision to design the future?

What if in future we communicated with robots or via social media more than with other human beings in direct contact? If people shaped the environment actively by crowdfunding projects? If individuals within a community helped each other to create a safer environment instead of relying on public services like police to take over this role? If climate change was tackled by innovative ideas like artificial leaves absorbing carbon emissions and producing oxygen? What if in future all human beings got extinct, can our knowledge of how to rebuild a civilisation been preserved?

The fascinating exhibition ‘The Future Starts Here' in the Victoria and Albert Museum rose these and uncountable more questions about current development projects shaping our future in me. By presenting 100 objects impacting the development of interpersonal relationships, the development of our societies, the wellbeing of our planet or even the afterlife (The Future Starts Here, 2018), controversial discussions about the role of the designer in the whole process were triggered.

One quote from the exhibitions entry texts summarises the topic quite well:

The world of tomorrow is shaped by the designs and technologies emerging today. (The Future Starts Here, 2018)

The technologies partly frightened me, and on the other hand some gave me hope. The rising emotional intelligence of robots interacting quite similar to human beings was one of the frightening developments. The question 'We are all connected, but do we feel lonely?' (The Future Starts Here, 2018) made me ask if human interactions will maybe be completely replaced by robots. And if this will make us feel lonely? My fear is that it will be this case and robots might even take over humanity. On the contrary, the design of a ‘dumb’ phone (The Future Starts Here, 2018) showed the counter trend, going back to means of direct communication between people instead of smartphones consuming our attention.

Most of the developments regarding change in society were optimistic as well. A change in democracy was promoted through the rising importance of crowdfunding and participatory platforms, through which people impact developments in their community or on a large scale. To give an example, the app ‘Cell411’ launched in 2016 facilitates self-organised networks of support. With the app alerts in situations of danger can be send to family, friends and a community of people in a certain distance, promoting moral courage (The Future Starts Here, 2018).

Also scientists developed the first leaf from silk protein that can produce oxygen and absorb carbon dioxide (The Future Starts Here, 2018). Can this help to stop climate change?

But what if the technological advancements will lead to a extinction of mankind, are there any means to secure at least the knowledge that we gained within the last hundreds of thousands of years of existence? The exhibition provided a good option: A newly developed method allows the storage of data in glass discs that will endure billions of years (The Future Starts Here, 2018). But which knowledge would be relevant for a future species rebuilding a civilisation? A group of scientists is working on a collection of books from all different topics, they consider relevant (The Future Starts Here, 2018). If they will be of any use will be discovered maybe in future, beyond the time span of our lives.

Pictures from the exhibition (Hinger, 2018)

By rising all these questions and showing the developed products and concepts the exhibition emphasised the role of these products on the future. There is a very inspiring graphic by Stuart Candy (no date, cited in Dune and Raby, 2013, p.5) about the possible, plausible, probable and preferable positions of designs:

Graphic on design futures (Candy, 2013, cited in Dune and Raby, 2013, p.5)

Each design shapes the future, and the question is in which of the four possible areas it falls.

The main aspect I tried to focus on in the museum was, if the outcomes of the objects predicted a preferable future (or at least a future that seemed desirable for me). My general impression was that the majority of the developments aimed at the rich and fortunate part of this world's society only, who can afford buying e.g. home robots or self-driving cars (The Future Starts Here, 2018). Nevertheless, some technologies like phones with enormous battery life and connectivity or solar lamps to carry around easily (The Future Starts Here, 2018) address some of the urgent needs of large parts of all humans. Should the technologies presented shaping the future not tackle the largest problems on earth more than the fancy add-ons of people living a decent living standard already? I hope that the choice of objects on display is not representative for the effort put into changing current miserable circumstances for future generations.

I concluded, if we either like or dislike the future predicted, it is the choice and responsibility of the designers, design managers as well as consumers to decide now if we want to follow the given way or shape the future the way we would like it to be.

Two of my Design Management fellow students and me in the exhibition (Hinger, 2018)

Reference List:

Dune A., Raby F. (2013) Speculative Everything: Design, Fiction, and Social Dreaming. London, The MIT Press.

The Future Starts Here (2018) [Exhibition]. Victoria and Albert Museum, London. 12 May 2018 - 4 November 2018.