Dynamic Ways of Prospecting: Parts, Wholes, Experiential Futures, And Eating a Banana for the First Time

Abstract

Abstract This paper explores the complex relationship between the parts and wholes of prospective narratives and the form and function of those narratives. Applying Goethean science and dynamic ways of seeing to storytelling in futures and transition design, the paper proposes a methodological approach to surfacing and disrupting fixed assumptions about the future with the intention of reanimating the narrative to create space for novelty to emerge. This reanimation is made possible because of the holographic nature and inherent systemicity of stories, which provides multi-scalar affordances through the wholes and the parts of the narrative. The paper delves into an experiential futures case study, The Museum of Food, to demonstrate the role that encounters with the future can play in disrupting future fixedness in playful but meaningful ways. By entangling reanimated prospective narratives with staged experiential encounters, participant audiences are provided with the incremental scaffolding, the prospective plot points, to reimagine and reauthor their own stories about the future, dismantling used and colonized futures in the process.