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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Do we need a parallel polis? by The Alternative UK // ONTOLOGICAL POLITICS

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A parallel polis is a space of human creativity and agency that connects all citizens to practical solutions to our environmental, social division and well-being crises. In this session you are invited to imagine a parallel polis through architecture that can connect community agency-networks (CANs) locally and internationally and sketch its potential impact.

Agenda track: Ontological politics
Session type: New experimental models
Interaction level: Some
Movement level: Some
Screen need:  Needed all the time 

A parallel polis is constructed out of:

  1. A global system of place-based cosmolocal CANs that bring together
  •       civil society organisations and their clients
  •       social entrepreneurs and all those building the 4th sector economy
  •       those traditionally excluded from mainstream political discourse but who share values with the above
  •       those who may not share these values but live in the locality and take part in its social life
  1. A new media system serving the CAN of CANs.

This parallel polis is fundamentally autonomous, but has the capacity to partner with governments to create improved outcomes for people and the planet. Its main attraction is future-oriented creativity that recognises our collective need for agency, meaning, purpose, freedom and belonging.

We begin this session by looking at the psychosocial needs and resources of the polity to set the tone of the ‘onto-shift’ – a reorientation of people power from homo economicus to homo ludens: every person is a creative, capable of playing our way out of crisis. 

We continue by inviting you to design the architecture that can connect CANs in towns and cities, through regions to an international network of people’s parliaments. What kinds of constitutes can successfully contain people power? What tools and practices can enable relational governance? What sense-making tools can help interpret the diverse desires and imagination of citizens? Where do citizens and people’s assemblies fit in? What tech is useful, what is not? What new currencies can enhance the viability of the CAN of CANs?

In the course of the session we will sketch out how the parallel polis made up of an international CAN of CANs can

  •       transform citizens experience of cosmolocal power
  •       give rise to new system fractals, capable of replicating throughout the world
  •       establish a new political axis, linking the flourishing of people, community and planet (I, We, World)
  •       how that in turn can generate the demand for a wider system shift

We are hoping to attract builders of the parallel polis, including:

  • those who are involved in running and building Commynity Agency Networks (CANs) anywhere in the world
  • those who are already designing the tech capable of creating governance systems for CANs
  • tech designers for the international CAN of CANs
  • tech designers for the new media system
  • cosmolocal media practitioners
  • artists, designers, theatre professionals
  • help to finance the ten-year project

This session is especially beneficial for political and social entrepreneurs, civil society actors, movement builders, artists, educationalists, tech designers, and spiritual activists.

We started The Alternative UK in 2017 on the day that British MP Jo Cox was murdered. We were clear that the party political system operated through opposition and could not bring people together to face the multiple crises of this time. Across Europe and the US, only 2% of people are members of political parties. Any promising progressive political agenda can easily be hijacked by those who know how to manipulate social media.

After nearly five years of observing the innovation and self-organising outside of the mainstream of socio-political-economic systems we were convinced that the key to transformation was to harness human agency cosmolocally through community agency networks (CANs). These are not formal, bureaucratic organisations directed by authorities, but responsive, creative and ambitious spaces where any and every element of a new socio-political-economic system can gather. They have diverse forms and styles of agency, held together by careful facilitation, capacious narratives and the best of relational tech.

In these spaces, every kind of citizen can experience participation and the chance to create a future they can look forward to. With civil society and social entrepreneurs at the core, their work is not voluntary, but constantly generating community wealth and a growing 4th sector economy.

The session is led by Indra Adnan & Pat Kane

@AlterUK21
www.thealternative.org.uk

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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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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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