Agendas
A research tool for scenario design
In Mexico and other places, an agenda is a list of activities and also the little book where we write such activities.
Such alittle book landed into our hands during a game of “present snatching” (where party guests give and get ridiculous gifts during holidays), and we thought it was the most underrated gift of the party– how could someone see it as unwanted? Someone’s privacy for an entire year wrapped as a present– a special mundanity.
If speculative design talks about the mundane futures of people, this object sets a perfect, finished scenario where to write from: what if we utilized used agendas as shared prompt material from where to invent conclusions and destinies for everyone and everything mentioned?
The agenda experience above resulted in an experiment which in turn became a 22-minute speculative film– a sort of “found object” with snippets from unknown folks’ lives in the past, present, and future.
The film was made by asking people from a few countries to submit themselves reading parts of their agendas or calendars. People watching the film during installations in Sweden and Denmark were asked to continue the mundane lives of the readers during a literature event where the film was released.
Ever since, we use Agendas during scenario design with all of our clients.
You can watch ‘Agendas’ right here: