It is now out Neorural Futures, a documented case history of a Speculative Design learning experience, curated by the visionary duo Art is Open Source. The book is the result of a workshop held in Rome in 2019 at RUFA, Rome University of Fine Art, together with 100 people enrolled from all over the world.
Art is Open Source, was born in 2004 as an interdisciplinary research laboratory focused on merging artistic and scientific practices to gain better understandings about the mutation of human beings and their societies with the advent of ubiquitous technologies.
Their research is currently exploring new horizons within a “Nuovo Abitare”. We have just had an in depth overview of the new methodologies and technologies conceived to promote “new forms of performative practices in the spaces of ubiquitous and glocal existences ”, in an article recently written by Giorgio Cipolletta (Never Have We Needed Art as Much as We Do Now, Arshake, January 19. 2021)
Neorural focuses on speculative design applied to agriculture, questioning:
“How Speculative Design, Design Fiction, Near Future Design and Critical Design approaches help people and organisations to discuss possible and preferable futures in times of disruption and global crisis present and to come – such as climate change or pandemics?
What are possible, immaginable and prefarable future scenarios for rurality in then years from now?
What are the key elements to design and realize a meaningful, collaborative and engaging learning experience – involving people minds and bodies, and capable to create bridges between the event and the city?“
(Art is Open Source)
“We all need to immagine futures, right in the middle of our society.
This is why initiatives such as SpeculativeEdu are so important. How do you teach designers to not only to imagine future scenarios, but also to engage other people, their fellow citizens and human beings, to think together and to activate themselves? How do you move from ‘possible’ to ‘desirable’, ‘preferable’, ‘enjoyable’, ‘just’ – and other beautiful adjectives that we might want to add? How do we do it as a society?
This is possibly the most important form of politics that we can do: social imagination
and desire.”
Artists and coordinators of Neorural Futures, HER: She Loves Data)
The publication documents for students and professionals the approaches, methods, design and cultural strategies we used to conceive Neorural Futures, the summer academy of the SpeculativeEdu project.
