P–F Fakery
Pop-Up, Installation, Experience /2017
Project done together with Bettina Schwalm as Present–Futures
What’s the project about?
Today is the day to turn things around, to change perspective.
Welcome to the best futures you ever had.
As a pop-up structure, the “Present-Futures Fakery” will hack the Salone 2015. Designed to blend into different environments, it will appear and disappear in different venues, corporate and noncorporate, as well as in the streets of Milan.
Visitors will be invited to envision a desired future occupation to then be transformed into a business card: a commonly approved document that will act as manifestation and proof of this possible alternate reality. Each person will get one custom made card.
The transformation happens though a secondary layer that uses an optical phenomena, revealing a hidden alternative potential to the desired occupation. The idea is that the revelation of your desired future will also be supplemented by other possible futures, allowing one to discover alternatives which haven’t even been thought of before. This will encourage the person to take an active role in the creation and transformation of a parallel reality to become the real reality. We are the creators of the future(s) we want to live in.
The manifestation of dreams can be the first step to transfer a simple thought into reality. Starting from a very personal context the visitor is prepared to extend these thoughts and potentially become an acting person in different realms, rather than a passive onlooker in the present crowd.
Why is it called Present futures fakery?
“Every lie creates a parallel world - a world in which it is true.” - Momus
The fakery is an experiment within the platform of present-futures, exploring the possibilities of the fake as first step of creating the basis for a new reality and actualising its potential. Along the lines of “fake it ‘till you make it” the process of change often starts by undermining existing ways of doing and thinking, in order to create the necessary ground for social change. By challenging the notions of what we consider to be reality, we can then take action to create new realities we actually desire.
To show the alternatives - to be present-minded of future potentialities. To put forth a desire, and to see its manifestation as a possibility.
What’s in a lie, if not the desire to make a truth that does not yet exist become a reality. It is like throwing a penny at the bottom of the well, and wishing out loud for a more desirable circumstance to manifest itself in your immediate future.
What are you going to do in Milan?
We want to show people the possibility that there are other possibilities, that they can manifest themselves in the present, and that consequently they will transform the future. The “present-futures fakery” will embody this concept and translate it into an experienceable action. The end product, being that of a business card, becomes the living metaphor and manifestation of this desired potential; usable in an instant, and acting in a supporting role. At first this may seem as merely an enactment, but in actual reality it has the potential to become the person's future self.
How will people in Milan notice it?
When Googling ‘Why are moths attracted to light?’
‘In a behavior called transverse orientation, some insects navigate by flying at a constant angle relative to a distant light source, such as the moon. But around man-made lights, such as a campfire or your torchlight, the angle to the light source changes as a moth flies by. This confuses it.’ - Google ‘why are moths attracted to light?’
They will be drawn in, like a moth to a flame, with a sense of curiosity rooted in the the odd, the off, and a bit of the absurd.
Why are you doing it, the idea/inspiration behind it? Whats the aim of the project?
Simply put: a mix of wanting to inspire change, to be ‘counter’, and a gif. illustrating the power of simple optical illusions, all coming together. But really it is to help people to re-discover future potentialities in the everyday. We do this by finding ways to bridge the so called ‘experience gap’: the feeling of distance towards complex and abstract concepts. By translating these concepts, be it through ‘lying’, ‘faking’(the fakery), or the transformation of objects into “critical future artefacts”, we explore methods that empower and activate people to take personal action, starting from the individual level, emanating outwards into the collective process of change.