Dr. Untitled – A Confessional Online Performance by MiklagardArts & Studio Kalleinen // HETERODOX INSTITUTIONS

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In this playful event we share the struggles of living up to our values and ideals. Dr. Untitled is the first part of a series of events consisting of online performances, one-on-one sessions with members of the Untitled Alliance and a grand offline finale at Untitled Festival 2022. 

Agenda track: Heterodox Institutions
Session type: New perspectives
Interaction: Some interaction but mostly just lean back
Movement: None
Screen: Have your audio on but having your video on is strictly forbidden for participants! Video and audio is used by the performers, so have your screen available.
Day: Friday 24 September 11.30-12.45 UTC |14.30-15.45 EEST

In our experiment we want to understand how individuals – who are part of the Untitled Alliance – manage to translate the goals and ideals of their daily work into their private life. Do you advocate a basic universal income but don’t know how to deal with your kids’ pocket money? Do you implement national citizens assemblies but cannot decide on the family vacation?  Are you a vegan eating meat in your dreams? Do you have occasionally brief moments of feeling like a hypocrite? Then this is the right session for you. In full anonymity we share cases about such dissonances. 

The presented cases – your cases – will be discussed by our peer-to-peer support network. At the same time each case will be fed into an immature human AI system called “Åsa and Max” that is particularly responsive to so called intention-behavior discrepancies. Our system – while still in its infancy – will unapologetically try to produce recommendations for each case. It nevertheless needs to be trained by providing feedback on the presented recommendations. 

This session is intended for professional “re-imagineers” who work day in and out on the transformation of society. 

Join us in trying to apply big picture ideas on a very small scale.

Disclaimer: This session requires no imagination.

As a next step we would like to schedule one-on-one sessions with individual members of the Untitled Alliance. In those sessions we would like to go deeper into some of the dissonances that will be introduced during the launch performance.

The Concept and facilitation of this session is organised by Ceyda Berk-Söderblom, Tellervo Kalleinen and Oliver Kochta-Kalleinen, and MiklagardArts is responsible for its production. Actors Max Bremer and Åsa Nybo feature in the session as well.

Studiokalleinen.net, miklagardarts.com

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Talk show on future relationships by Mikko-Pekka Hanski [FI] // ONTOLOGICAL POLITICS

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The services provided by society should be based on the idea of relationships that strengthen us, not on threatening or controlling relationships. This talk show explores relationships with other-than-human guests.

Agenda track: 2 Ontological politics
Session type: New perspectives
Interaction level: Some
Movement level: None required, but there is a band, so the music might make you dance
Screen need: Possible to use audio only
Day: Friday the 24th of September, late afternoon EEST / CET.

There are four guests on the show:

  • The first guest is an AI with whom we have a dialogue on work and leadership. What are their leadership principles?
  • Next is a conversation between mushrooms and a human on what mushrooms think about human behaviours.
  • The third guest is a brain, with a researcher as their interpreter, trying to figure out what imagination and hope mean in the brain. 
  • The final guest is a system – what does a global intergovernmental organisation think about the future?

As most humans don’t know the language of our guests yet, each one has an interpreter with them. The audience will be able to comment and ask our guests questions. The conversation is accompanied by an eleven-member band. Feel free to dance to the music!

An open-source service platform to inspire great ideas and those behind them to build utopias will also be launched at this show.

The host of the talk show Mikko-Pekka Hanski is a school teacher by education who has worked decades in tech through a company he co-founded. Now he concentrates on imagining new worlds, developing concepts and investing in ideas and people that make life a bit better and easier for us all. He is one of the founding members of Untitled.

“For the idea of the show and who to invite as my talk show guests I have to give credit to two hosts at Untitled Festival 2020: Panthea Lee from Reboot showed us questions that some people have to ask that I don’t ever have to ask. I realised I really need to understand more of the realities of others. Then two flying Siberian squirrels Papana & Norkko organised a panel. Inspired by them, I have invited others than humans in my talk show”, says Mikko-Pekka.

“Things people are working on in the Untitled community blow my mind all the time. Somebody is reimagining democracy, the other working on how to make the world see the missing narratives of the future of work and the 3 million unemployed South African young people aged 15–24 as a force of the future.” 

In the Untitled community Mikko-Pekka, or Hanski, is known for his enthusiasm and readiness to help: “That’s what the whole Untitled is about for me: helping each other do hard but hopeful things.”

@mphanski
www.hanskismaskinservice.com/en

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From S curve to X curve of transitions: Innovating & killing the old by DRIFT // NEW MODELS OF ECONOMY & GOVERNANCE

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Transitions are fundamental changes in culture, structure, and practices in societal systems. They involve a ‘creation vs destruction’ duality that is inherent and crucial to the process of generating new alternative practices and structures. Simultaneously, we need to be questioning, destabilizing, and breaking down existing unsustainable practices and structures to make place for the new. We will apply our approach collectively to the food transition, which is aiming for a food system that is nature-positive. There are some major questions we seek to answer: are we already see transition patterns, what needs to grow or be transformed and what needs to stop in order for this process to work?

Agenda track: 5 New models of economy & governance
Session type: New Perspectives
Interaction level: Some
Movement level: None
Screen need: Needed all the time

The X-curve is a visual tool that underlines transition dynamics. It is based on scientific insights into the ways in which complex systems fundamentally change in nature. It provides a starting point to explore the transition dynamics present in each domain. Working with the X-curve is an intuitive and flexible way to create shared transition narratives and understanding of complex societal challenges in heterogeneous groups and empower people to change

In this session, we will introduce the transition perspective and jointly be exploring this tool to understand how it can be utilised to support transitions in society.

We invite anyone to join us who is interested in systemic change, and understanding how we can break down the old and build in a sustainable and systematic manner.

The goal of this session is to provide participants a tool that they can use themselves to hopefully accelerate transformative changes in their own context, as well as that it will help DRIFT to improve the tool. By collectively discussing the food transition as an example, we hope to establish new connections as well as more engagement with this theme.

Derk Loorbach is director of DRIFT and Professor of Socio-economic Transitions at the Faculty of Social Science, both at Erasmus University Rotterdam. Femke Coops is a master student in Industrial Design at Eindhoven University of Technology and a graduate intern at DRIFT. Mayte Beekman is working as a quartermaster at the Design Impact Transition (DIT) Platform, an Erasmus University initiative aimed at enhancing the transformative societal impact of the university by using a design approach. Derk, Femke and Mayte work together on bringing together design and transitions and transforming the role of research for societal transitions.

Twitter: @drk75
Website: drift.eur.nl

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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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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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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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Everything is a citizen by Dark Matter Labs [UK] // NATURE – HUMAN

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There is a river in New Zealand that has been granted citizenship. What if everything were a citizen? In this session we look at the world from this perspective. 

Agenda track:  1 Nature – Human 
Session type: New perspectives
Interaction level: Some
Movement level: None
Screen needs: Possible to use audio only

There is an urgent and increasing understanding that humans’ relationship to the material and biological world is deeply flawed. At the same time there’s an increased understanding of non-human actors – from viruses to climate systems – playing a massive role in our everyday lives. However, “protecting nature” or “fighting the virus” for example seem approaches that do not address the real issues.

Could we instead give “everything” agency, see everything as a citizen that has rights and can make contracts with us? 

The session is for all creatures interested in biodiversity, governance and exploring a vision of the world where humans are not at the center of it all.

@indy_johar

darkmatterlabs.org

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Living Change: grief as an overlooked force by Louise Armstrong [UK] // HETERODOX INSTUTIONS

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For those who are looking to enable a just and regenerative world, it is critical that we find ways to be closing the regenerative cycle.

Agenda track: 4 Heterodox institutions & 1 Nature – human
Session type: new perspectives
Interaction level: Most of the time
Movement level: None
Screen need: Needed all the time
Day: Friday 24 September, 11 am EEST | 8 am UTC

We are comfortable creating the new, but often skirt around the loss, closure, ‘release’ and death phase of change – even though they are an inevitable and necessary part of any change process.

It is essential we know how to work with these powerful forces as we continue to adapt to and live during a global pandemic, increasing impacts of climate change and as our regimes and ways of being crumble around us.

This session will be offering a series of metaphors and framing that help us to work with grief and loss in a tangible way. We will also spend some time witnessing and sharing with each other and experiencing the power of grief-tending practices.

This session is especially for those…

  • who know they haven’t processed grief and changes experienced throughout the pandemic and beyond.
  • who want to connect to what is really important to them and are unafraid of the intimacy of life.
  • who are open and curious.

The custodian of this session, Louise Armstrong has experienced the transformative potential of tending to grief and is committed to supporting a shift in the culture and practices through which we frame and work with loss and grief as a part of the cycles of change. This festival session is partly a test of the potential of this type of space and offering in supporting those living and working towards transformative change

Louise Armstrong enables and supports those committed to living change and who are running ambitious system-altering work and collaborations. She does this through emergent facilitation, system-change coaching, power-informed practices, process design, visual thinking, pattern spotting and navigating complexity. She has formerly worked for the Forum for the Future.

@louise_a
louise-a.medium.com 

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Jarenko and Heikkila in colourful clothes

Crushing our social presets by Karoliina Jarenko & Jukka-Pekka Heikkilä [FI] // CIVIC IMAGINATION

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In Western cultures people have been indoctrinated to believe that rationality ought to govern the body, mind and emotions. This tradition originates from Plato, who glorified the rational and laid ground for the supremacy and social status of those who suppress their feelings, obey the results of their deductive rationalizations and keep with a restrained and controlled appearance. This narrative is still dominant in the West: look around at those we call successful and influential, and you see people of restraint. 

Karoliina Jarenko and Jukka-Pekka Heikkilä want to challenge that. 

Agenda track: 3 Civic imagination
Session type: New perspectives
Interaction level: Most of the time
Movement level: Some / a lot
Screen need: Needed all the time
Day: Friday 24 September

In order to reimagine the future, we must be able to crush and reboot the social preset and we invite you on that journey with us. The session brings forward arguments as to why showing emotions and joy in our cultural webs of meanings is needed. 

The session is open to curious and playful people who look forward to exploring new breakthroughs in personal development, leadership, and creating impact.

The custodians of this session, Karoliina Jarenko and Jukka-Pekka Heikkilä have both been educated and acculturated into the Western academic, intellectual and rationality-centered thinking. They know its strengths and shortcomings. Life has also introduced them to communities that live in a more immediate and creative manner and have experienced their transformational power personally and documented it scientifically.

The next step following this session at the festival session is to establish a band that has absolutely no musical skills and start a revolution by expressing ourselves a bit more humanly. 

Karoliina Jarenko is an author, organizational consultant, keynote speaker, co-founder and former CEO of the Academy of Philosophy Helsinki. She is now working on a concept for creating 21st century learning organizations. Karoliina calls herself ”the HandyMandy of Future Worklife” and is known for her energetic and earthly delivery. 

Dr. Jukka-Pekka Heikkilä is a scholar-activist, who co-builds new openings and aims to bridge science and practice, especially through arts. From his social preset, Dr. Heikkilä’s disciplinary approaches are entrepreneurship and organisation science and he is a Royal Society (UK) Newton Fellow, and a visiting scholar at Stanford and Harvard University. He has published in leading academic journals such as the Academy of Management Discoveries, Journal of World Business and Environment and Planning A. 

jukkapekka.com & www.karoliinajarenko.fi

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Expanding the rave by BodyTalk // ONTOLOGICAL POLITICS

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We want to explore the hypothesis that life can be a party. Indeed some parties – for example rave parties – are already much more than just a party. In this session we explore mix of dance and rave techniques with a psychoanalytical approach of free association. In other words, you are welcome to be seduced by music, get lifted by dance and to speak whatever comes out of your mouth about what kind of role parties could and should have.

Agenda track: 2 Ontological politics, 3 Civic imagination
Session type: New perspectives
Interaction level: Some
Movement level: A lot
Screen need: Good to have

This session is for all the people interested in bringing joy and leaving ego to struggle for social change. 

We think partying could be so much more than escapism or revitalization for work. We are certain that social change should be a joyful thing, rather than waiting for the joy to come after the struggle.

 The session aims to build a loose community of dancers and organisers that can take the lessons into practice – to the coming Untitled festivals and beyond. 

Expanding the rave is hosted by BodyTalk, an activist-performance group working to join together moving to a repetitive beat, imagining the unimaginable and pushing for social change.

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