Agendas, 2019 to Any year
— A research project for scenario design.
An agenda in Mexico is a list of activities and also “the calendar’s container” (usually a little book). This little book landed into our hands during a game of “present snatching” (where party guests give and get ridiculous gifts during celebrations and holidays), and we thought it was the most underrated gift of the party– how could someone see it as unwanted? Someone’s privacy of an entire year wrapped as a present– a special mundanity.
If speculative design talks about the mundane futures of people (today and later), this object set(s) a perfect scenario where to write from: what if you utilized used agendas as a shared prompt material from where to come up – alone or together – with conclusions and destinies for everyone and everything mentioned?
The fiction prompt for a time travel, in this case, could be: when you’re done with your rapid prototype, apply it in seven situations you find in an agenda. Then you know the future you’re exploring is mundane.
The agenda experience above resulted in an experiment which in turn ended with a speculative film– a sort of “found object” with snippets from unknown folks’ lives in the past, present, and future.
People from a few countries were asked to submit themselves reading parts of their agendas or calendars. People watching the film were asked to continue the mundane futures of the readers during a literature art show in 2019 where the film was released.
You can watch ‘Agendas’ above or on Vimeo.
