Transmission 15.5: THE PALINDROME'S LAUNCH

This is a newsletter for designers and time travel facilitators. It has insights about the speculative practice & tools we use in our method that they could try as well. Today we see /it/.

PALINDROME is, depending on the order in which you use it, a speculative design toolkit or a game of futures. We have finally released the game this spring <3

The latest Transmissions series (15.1, .2, .3, and .4) have each focused on a stage of the work we did towards the game’s first irl play at the Danish Design Center in Copenhagen, this May.

The summary of the transmissions:
15.1 Collect & Research
15.2 Narrative
15.3 Dynamics
15.4 Object
15.5 Launch (today)

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After a fantastic run researching deep games and speculative methodologies, designing dynamics, and prototyping components, we finally gave birth to a speculative design game, or a game of futures!
The first thing it saw? Mida and Joss doing a high-five :)

This is our own tool for meaning–making (that is, before sense-making). To imagine futures outside the futures cone. The first step in our consulting practice so that our partners see their own future before they exist in it in later months.

We are happy to show our invention to you, our beloved world. The Time Travel Agency x Fermacampione launched Palindrome at the Danish Design Center in Copenhagen thanks to their support and that from Fondazione Pini.

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This transmission is structured in stages which mimic the stages of the game–object. Besides images, we’ve added a link to the corresponding past transmission, where you can refresh your memory or read about that stage for the first time.

This transmission is heavy on images, so if you find yourself reading the "Message clipped" notice, please just click click click and make yourself comfortable directly in Substack. Here we go!

ENTRANCE

Transmissions 15.1 Collect & Research + 15.2 Narrative

The entrance divider’s cryptic message hinting of the path to come / From early work by Jocelyn Ibarra, Sofia Ivarsson, and Jim Rosenberg.

The guiding book

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DECONSTRUCTION

Transmissions 15.3 Dynamics + 15.4 Object

The Postcards. A set of 21x21 cards with artifacts invented by previous time travelers of The Time Travel Agency (originally available as travel souvenirs). Each artifact has its story in the back, which functions as a different starting point every time the game is played.

The puzzle with the deconstructing instructions in the back

The puzzle for the first artifact– The Human Eggsperience, imagined by Boost in Helsingborg, Sweden.

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FUTURES & AGENCY

The Gameflow, one of the two tracking documents. Based in Jim Rosenberg’s Diagram Poems. Its free remixing is a present <3

The Book of Futures, where the imagined futures gather, awaiting to be picked up by Palindrome toolkit users.

The Book of Futures, interior

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Note on these transmissions:

This is the last of Palindrome’s behind-the-scenes!

The Time Travel Transmissions will transmit elsewhere between July and September as they get ready to host a Palindrome run that will stretch for 4 months or so. Every recipient here will be able to participate using e-mail, and we will welcome and take care of each of you.

We salute you for making it this far, grateful for being accompanied xx