Reimagine Wellbeing Part I: Conscious multilevel cultural evolution – a Paradigmatic alternative to individualism by Life Itself & Prosocial World [UK/FR/US]

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Fighting climate change with technology and changing consumption behaviour won’t be enough. The pivotal answer may be to finally pursue a world where cultivating better ways of being, for current and future humans, is the goal of social and economic policy. Life Itself is hosting two sessions on this theme of well-being and sustainability. The first is a collaboration with Prosocial World and esteemed evolutionary biologist David Sloan Wilson, exploring how a shift away from an individualistic paradigm might transform our world for the better.

Agenda track: 2 Ontological politics, 3 Civic imagination
Session type: New narratives
Interaction level: Some
Movement level: None
Screen need: Possible to use audio only
Day: Thursday 23 September 14–16 UTC | 17–18 EST

Individualism – the idea that all things social can be reduced to the motives and actions of individuals – has long historical roots and has been the dominant intellectual tradition of western societies for the last 70 years. An alternative to Individualism is the idea that societies can qualify as organisms in their own right. This idea also has long historical roots, but only very recently has it been placed on a solid scientific foundation. David will provide an overview of the new paradigm and its implications for positive change efforts and the unification of science and spirituality.

The second session on Friday will be a workshop organised together with Moral Imaginations. In the workshop participants – using collective imagining methods – will dive into the implications on policy and current possibilities to progress this shift in policy-making.

You can participate in either one or both sessions. Attending the Thursday session is not a requirement for participating in the second part on Friday.

Life Itself is a community of pragmatic utopians, committed to practical action for a radically wiser, healthier world. Life Itself creates co-living hubs, starts businesses, does research and engages in activism to pioneer a wiser culture.

lifeitself.us @forlifeitself 

Prosocial World (PW) is a non-profit organization that seeks to evolve a more prosocial world. Inspired by scientists, PW takes the word “evolve” seriously, basing their methods on the most recent developments in evolutionary, complex systems, and contextual behavioral science to enhance cooperation and inspire positive change for the well-being of others. David Sloan Wilson is an evolutionary biologist and a Distinguished Professor of Biological Sciences and Anthropology at Binghamton University, as well as one of the directors of Prosocial world. His publications include Darwin’s Cathedral: Evolution, Religion, and the Nature of Society; Does Altruism Exist?: Culture, Genes, and the Welfare of Others, and This View of Life: Completing the Darwinian Revolution, among others.

prosocial.world @David_S_Wilson

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Reimagine Wellbeing Part II by Life Itself & Moral Imaginations [UK/FR] // ONTOLOGICAL POLITICS

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Fighting climate change with technology and changing consumption behaviour won’t be enough. The pivotal answer may be to finally pursue a world where cultivating better ways of being, for current and future humans, is the goal of social and economic policy. 

Agenda track: 2 Ontological politics, 3 Civic imagination
Session type: New narratives
Interaction level: Most of the time
Movement level: None
Screen need: All the time
Day: Friday 24 September

Any social or political envisioning or policy is constrained by an invisible frame: by the implicit values and views on which it is created, such as its views on the nature of human beings and the good life. Life Itself will be hosting two sessions to work on changing the narrative of what we are capable of as humans and the narrative of wellbeing, and what it means to bring this shift into policy-making.

This second session on Friday is a workshop organised together with Moral Imaginations. In the workshop, participants – using collective imagining methods – will dive into the implications on policy and current possibilities to progress this shift in policy-making.

You can participate in one or both sessions. Attending the conversation on Thursday is not a requirement for participating in the second part on Friday. The first Thursday session is organised together with Prosocial World and the conversation is fuelled by professor David S. Wilson‘s key insights from his wide work on group or multilevel selection in evolution, and applying evolutionary theory to different aspects of humanity, such as studying cultural evolution or group health.

Life Itself is a community of pragmatic utopians, committed to practical action for a radically wiser, healthier world. Life Itself creates co-living hubs, starts businesses, does research and engages in activism to pioneer a wiser culture.

lifeitself.us @forlifeitself 

Moral Imaginations is building a movement of moral imagination: collective imagining to increase radical kinship with the human and more-than-human worlds, present, past and future. They facilitate and develop collective imagining to empower people to create shared imaginings of the future. Phoebe Tickell is co-founder of Moral Imaginations, who believes that we need new stories of what it means to be human.

moralimaginations.com
@moral_imagining @solarpunk_girl

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RegenerativeGovernance-ImageByJessicaPerlstein

Regenerative Governance – An experimental simulation of decentralised organisation by Bloom // HETERODOX INSTITUTIONS, NEW MODELS OF ECONOMY & GOVERNANCE

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In this session we will be organising a simulation experience of a DAO (decentralized autonomous organization). This done by playing a game to learn peer-to-peer governance. This game is based on 13 years of real world R&D, finding and experimenting with replicable solutions in over 200 cities around the world. The session relies strongly on audience participation and interaction.

Agenda track: 4 Heterodox institutions, 5 New models of economy & governance
Session type: New experimental models
Interaction level: Most of the time
Movement level: Some
Screen need: All of the time
Day: Thursday 23 September

Prior to the DAO simulation in the session, Kiwi child-friendly city expert and curator Hannah Mitchell will be hosting a meditation session.

After the festival, Bloom will be hosting the first Bloom Womb cohort. This program seeks to bring to real-life the experiences gained in the DAO simulation.

Bloom Womb is a two-month in-depth introduction to regenerative cultures. It utilises a short syllabus, and a weekly meeting to engage and encourage deep connections and support among peers. At the end of the two-month period, there is a real-life weekend where participants near each other physically carry out a part of their goals or interests together. This program tangibly supports Untitled participants in following through on gems from their Untitled experience. It also builds deeper connectivity between our communities, and would support Bloom Network in starting a small revenue stream to continue bootstrapping our collaborative efforts.

Bloom is a grassroots international community of people and projects working toward regenerative cultures, founded in 2008. Local Bloom hubs around the world grow participation in practices such as food security, local economies, celebrations of diversity, and art as cultural transformation. There are tens of thousands of solutions for climate restoration and social equity all over the world. However, they are invisible to the general public and disconnected from one another. Bloom aims to connect people and existing initiatives, locally and globally, to build capacity together and inspire a billion acts of regeneration.

@ourbloomnetwork
bloomnetwork.org

Illustration by Jessica Perlstein / Bloom

Photo by Bloom

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Associate, the resident AI Poet of Untitled, by Otso Havanto [FI]

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Untitled’s resident poet Associate is back. Associate creates an experimental and poetic digital documentation from the various discussions that take place within the Untitled events. Associate is at the same time an independent artwork and experimental documentation of the festival. It is displayed online at associate.associates

The recorded discussions in Untitled meetings and festival events are processed through a machine learning algorithm. This process picks up parts of sentences and individual words that accumulate and mix in the ever increasing database. The algorithm forms new connections between various textual elements based on machine learning models that analyse the context and statistical properties of individual words and phrases.

The machine learning model aims to bring light to emerging and new connections between textual nodes, and reflect on various alternative meanings and paths derived from the language used within Untitled discussions.

Privacy and anonymisation of data is a core function of the artwork. All the conversations recorded at Untitled Festival that are used for Associate, are processed in a way that it is impossible to identify an individual speaker. The recordings are not published. 

The version at display on the website creates new textual interpretation clusters and poetic variations from the Untitled discussions, ultimately aiming to foster the creation of Untitled’s own unique discourse engine. 

Associate uses a statistical machine learning model that has been trained by the Common Crawl dataset, and by the OntoNotes source material from the University of Pennsylvania. The work accumulates ever expanding textual material from the Untitled discussions and produces novel statistical vectors between the various meanings of words and concepts. Over time the work trains a model that is unique to the language used by the Untitled community and platform.

The artwork aims to encourage us to use big data as a tool and resource for the various communities, movements, and other non-commercial organizations, that aim to create a more just and fair future society for all.

Otso Havanto is a new media artist and a maker creating digital art that leverages data and experimental analog/digital interfaces, and audiovisual sculptures and instruments exploring both new and obsolete technologies. Otso works cross-disciplinary with different tools and methods, focusing on generative processes and automation.

The artwork can be found on the following link: associate.associates

More of the artist: otsohavanto.net

A poem by Associate

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Universal Basic Mobility by Robin Chase [US] // CIVIC IMAGINATION & HETERODOX INSTITUTIONS

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At any given movement, 50% of the population cannot get into a car and drive somewhere. Yet this lack of mobility by so many people appears invisible to most of us, including planners and policymakers. Freedom of movement is a key human right for a more equitable future. 

Agenda track: 3 Civic Imagination & 4 Heterodox institutions
Session type: New perspectives 
Interaction level: Some
Movement level: None
Screen need: Possible to use audio only
Day: Thursday 23 September at 16-17.30 UTC | 19-20.30 EEST

The transition to EVs alone will not meet our 2030 climate goal of a 50% reduction in CO2 output. We need a transportation paradigm shift to introduce meaningful change: one founded in equity and opportunity, as the young, the poor, and Black people have the least access to a car, and.

In this session we will be imagining a mobility network that requires no government license or money to participate: A baseline of real autonomy for everyone. Everyone is welcome to join us! A diversity of ages and life experiences are needed to consider this basic human right.

Together, we need to find a narrative that makes this invisible/lost true freedom of movement salient and desirable to everyone, not just liberal, or urban, or green, or progressive populations. How do we tell reveal this story and the benefits in a way that encourages others to tell their stories and build/maintain momentum? and carry it to those deciding on which infrastructure and green investments are to be prioritized.

Robin Chase is a transportation entrepreneur. She is co-founder and former CEO of Zipcar, the largest carsharing company in the world; as well as co-founder of Veniam, a network company that moves terabytes of data between vehicles and the cloud. Her recent book is Peers Inc: How People and Platforms are Inventing the Collaborative Economy and Reinventing Capitalism. Her current passion is working with cities to maximize the transformation possible with the introduction of self driving cars.

@rmchase

robinchase.org 

 

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The Future of Work – the stories we tell ourselves and the ones we’d like to be true by Chipo Hamukoma [ZA] // CIVIC IMAGINATION

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In 2000, 11% of the global labour force was in Africa, and 25% in China. By 2100, 42% of the global labour force will be in Africa, and only 8% in China. As our future narratives are increasingly orientated towards a technology-driven world, where do all these people figure in? This session led by Chipo Hamukoma investigates the stories we tell ourselves about the future of work and the ones we’d like to be true.

Agenda track: 3 Civic imagination
Session type: New narratives 
Interaction level: Most of the time
Movement level: Some (Warm up at the beginning)
Screen need: Good to have

Our imaginations of the future are largely embedded in the past. New narratives of the future are shaped by climate realities and corporate forecasting. What does it mean to pause and collectively imagine a new world of work that honours the things we know to be true and creates space for more possibilities?

My name is Chipo Hamukoma, Research Manager at Harambee Youth Employment Accelerator. I’ve worked with governments across Africa solving complex problems in challenging contexts and am now exploring how to get more young Africans engaged in income generating activities. 

I grew interested in understanding the future when I led a project on the Future of African Cities. Which gave a really granular perspective on how to build cities for the future.  My current work is in solving youth unemployment in South Africa and that puts me at the intersection of futures and work. With our narratives about the future as old as they are, there’s a really interesting opportunity for us to introduce contemporary hopes and dreams to the stories we tell about the future.

This festival session will be a collective intelligence exercise in identifying 3–5 core principles to improve the nature of work, created for people who enjoy thinking, complex problems and creating.

From the insights developed in this session we can work towards distilling the fundamental nature of work, focusing on the ideas that will allow for more inclusive advocacy in discussions of the post/inter-Covid future of work.

@n_hamukoma
www.linkedin.com/in/nchamukoma 

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civic spaces

Civic Spaces by Gabriella Gómez-Mont (MX/NL) // CIVIC IMAGINATION

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Can a city offer its citizens different ways of gathering around shared visions, common questions and collective imaginations?

Agenda track: 3 Civic imagination
Session type: New experimental models
Interaction level: Some
Movement level: None
Screen need: Possible to have audio only
Day: Friday 24 September at 10-11.30 UTC | 13-14.30 EEST

We are living through a long political crisis that takes the form of rising authoritarian and racists ideologies as well as the short-termism of so-called “progressive” parties. This crisis makes a good case for the need to reimagine and expand opportunities for participation in collective life. Yet this crisis can hardly be solved by adding more top-down-participation or by trying to renew electoral systems, unless the very infrastructures of democracy and imagination are rebuilt. We need new ways for people to come together to engage, understand, form opinions, and dream. 

The answer might lie in moulding public spaces, one of the few places that algorithms do not control yet, into civic spaces. Civic spaces are spaces that help create a sense of agency, empower people and explore how to release civic capital and public assets. But, most importantly as a process of diversifying urban experience, these spaces can also add a spirit of experimentation and play. Simultaneously, they can develop micropolitics and social action, allowing for the collective development of people’s will in a way that current political structures do not.

We invite civil servants responsible for participation and the built environment as well as urbanists and artists capable of fostering social interaction and civic imagination to join the session, to discuss a new model for organising spatial life in cities. 

This session aims to lead into a meaningful dialogue with cities willing to research and implement the shift from public to civic. 

Gabriella Gómez-Mont is the founder and director of Experimentalista, a novel type of nomadic and creative office specializing in cities, with high-level, transdisciplinary collaborations across the world.  She is the former chief creative officer of Mexico City, and founder of Laboratorio para la Ciudad (2013-2018), the award-winning experimental arm and creative think-tank of the Mexico City government.

Gabriella Gomez-Mont in Linkedin

Photo: Ryan Lash, Creative Commons

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Helping you to hear me by Pehmee The Soft Collective [FI] // CIVIC IMAGINATION

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Time to practice softness and being present and intentional in your hearing. 

Agenda track: 3 Civic imagination & 4 Heterodox institutions
Session type: New perspectives
Interaction level: Most of the time
Movement: None
Screen need: Needed all the time
Day: Thursday 23 September, 15–16.30 UTC | 18-19.30 EEST

In this session we investigate how to connect and use our observation skills. We try to create a common space and communicate without physical presence by stripping down the daily routines and roles we might hold. You don’t have to bring anything but yourself to this session. We will be guiding you through this experience, so close off all distractions and the let the process talk. 

The session is for those who want to recenter after a long day with human-to-human interaction, and for anyone who is willing to listen. If we listen but do not hear each other, we cannot work intersectionally. In today’s world being present is active work that we need to practice. When the focus is to listen, rather than to concentrate on oneself: What could emerge from that? What kind of connections could evolve?

Pehmee aka The Soft is a collective from Helsinki, Finland. The collective members, artists and media workers are Caroline Suinner and Meriam Trabelsi, but you can also call us incurable rnb-babez_91. Our mission is to create space for the representation of marginalized bodies in media and fashion. The collective curates, hosts and creates content on several different media platforms, such as podcasts, radio, video and social media. The Pehmee collective also offers consultations for universities, seminars and international companies. They have also designed festival concepts, journalistic content, and safer spaces for movement amongst other events.

www.pehmee.com

@pehmeeog

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What kind of organisations survive in a regenerative world? by Halogen & Future Fit Leadership [NO] // NATURE–HUMAN

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We as societies need to move away of our current forms of action based on extracting resources from people and the planet around us. This form of action is pervaded by a sense of separation from our own true nature, from each other and from the natural world around us. Moving beyond sustainable, we believe the future will be regenerative – finding harmony with our own human-natures and the wider nature of life on Earth. But what kind of organisations have a role in a regenerative future, and what are the characteristics of a truly regenerative organisation?

Agenda track: 1 Nature – human
Session type: New narratives
Day: Thursday 23 September

In order to open up possibilities for regenerative futures, we will need to reinvent our organisations. Join Halogen, Future Fit Leadership Academy and Demos Helsinki to explore the qualities of a regenerative organisation and discover how our business becomes life-affirming for ourselves and all life on Earth.

Our businesses are powerful forces of agency. Each organisation has both an inner-collective of people within its culture, and also a network of stakeholder relations and communities through its ecosystem connected through vision, values and value.

In enabling organisations to become more regenerative we unlock potential in the people and stakeholder communities touched by regenerative organisations, hence help system-change beyond reducing harm into life-affirming futures.

This two-hour workshop is for a diverse group of cultural creatives, social pioneers, leadership and organisational development practitioners, sustainability specialists and regeneration explorers.

A rich picture of themes will emerge from this session and be shared after the event with the
participants, along with information on the systemic tools, frames and methods used throughout the
workshop.

Halogen is a cross-disciplinary design and innovation agency from Norway. halogen.no

The Future Fit Leadership Academy is a community of forward-thinking practitioners involved in transforming leaders and organisations. ffla.co

Demos Helsinki is a globally operating, independent think tank, which believes that
only together can we fight for a fair, sustainable, and joyful next era. demoshelsinki.fi

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Speculative Sketching by Corey Chao, Reboot [US]

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Speculative Sketching is a 10-minute creative writing exercise led by Corey Chao from Reboot to tone our futuring muscles before immersing in the content of a festival session or to synthesis a session collectively. Each participant picks from a set of prompts to write a very short narrative from the point of view of a future stakeholder in the content area the session itself is exploring. The goal is two-fold: to surface the individual and structural forces shaping the ways future people might interact with an issue, and to manifest some specific examples of futures we might prefer.

Speculative sketching is not its own session but you might encounter it as a starting or ending in another festival sessions.

Corey Chao is a Design director at Reboot, a filmmaker and media advocate and both dreamer and pragmatist. He uses storytelling and participatory methods to drive Reboot’s service design, facilitate alignment, and surface strategic opportunities to make a better world. Corey’s design practice focuses on distributing creative control to the diverse stakeholders and beneficiaries of social initiatives.

Reboot believes in a future that honors the dignity and joy of all, and helps diverse communities come together to shape it together. It supports communities to expand our collective imagination, find common cause, and craft a world rooted in care. Since 2010, Reboot has worked in over 40 countries to champion visions of a more just, caring, and equitable world. Reboot partners with community groups, grassroots activists, academics, movement organizations, nonprofits, private foundations, businesses, governments, and international agencies. The common thread between them is a commitment to structural justice. Reboot has offices in New York, US and Abuja, Nigeria.

@theReboot
www.reboot.org

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