Transmission 24.3: WORLDBUILDING COLLECTION: ANTENNA
Here come insights and behind-the-scenes from our futures practice! A glimpse into our uncommon perspective and approach, to keep updated or to know what to expect when time traveling with us.
Summer is a concept season at The Time Travel Agency:
Worldbuilding for adaptation.
In each broadcast of The Time Travel Transmissions two sections:
Worldbuilding Collection, our latest tools for worldbuilding.
Hyperlink Stroll, a chill summer activity inspired by The Wiki Game.
Concerned with the question 'How does Worldbuilding fit in a process of adaptation?' we’ll look into the worldbuilding that happens in our futuremaking.
What if the process of adaptation was pleasurable? The playful nature of worldbuilding is an opportunity to feel so– worldbuilding processes and tools teach how to access creativity and pleasure especially when we are stressed. What if by stepping into a future world we felt good about where things are going?
Our Nordic experiments embrace play and social participation while our American experiments focus on implementing, taking risk, and adapting fast. When play culture meets adaptation culture, there’s a lot to learn from each other.
Like open-heart surgery, making futures is invasive, yet our clients work from the assumption that their organization is going to make it.
Worldbuilding is a stage in our process that allows futures to be explored.
We make worlds so our clients feel what it’s like to live in and affect those worlds;
to feel agency.
These are behind the scenes of our most recent worldbuilding tools,
developed between Sweden and California this year
for organizations envisioning how to move forward.
Here are the most recognized stages of our process:
Inside Worldbuilding is 'Antenna'
TOOL 3: ANTENNA
WHAT ‘ANTENNA’ IS
ANTENNA is an interdimensional postal service provided by The Time Travel Agency that explores the uniqueness of writing a postcard.
Sending a postcard through Antenna is an exceptional experience, as brevity presents an interesting challenge, valuable for future communication. The limited space in a postcard inspires non-linear thinking, drawings, and even the inclusion of glued items, which the service can deliver without a problem.
Postcards build brief worlds.
Brevity presents a fascinating difficulty (fascinating to us) that sparks unusual storymaking.
Rather than composing a lengthy letter, the sender must carefully select words, visuals, or even small mementos to capture the essence of their message. We forsake traditional letter-writing conventions, we make the most of every pixel or centimeter available, or explore negative space. A piece of metal taped to a postcard can explain the texture of a world.
Antenna encourages senders to engage in a form of Feng shui, arranging their thoughts and visuals strategically within the confined area, balancing the message's essence with artistic expression:
INSIDE ‘ANTENNA’
One of the remarkable aspects of Antenna is that it can serve as a conduit for communication with not only the worlds one has built, but the worlds of others, and even the realm of the departed!
So the questions arise: What would you say if you could speak to someone else's world? And, more intriguingly, how does one discover the appropriate means of communication?
Antenna has been know to leave senders pondering whether the receiver's identity will be revealed or if there’s even a way to discern it, adding an air of mystery to this interdimensional correspondence system.
A question for ANTENNA: What is the most difficult thing to keep in mind as an interdimensional postal service?
“Definitely maintaining accurate spatial and temporal coordinates across different dimensions. Ensuring that deliveries go to the correct destinations within the appropriate timelines could be a daunting task, considering the complexities of navigating multiple realms with varying rules and physics. Additionally, keeping track of the diverse customs regulations, languages, and cultural sensitivities across dimensions pose a significant challenge for me. Still, the receivers are always happy and intrigued and that makes me happy.”
A chill summer activity inspired by The Wiki Game for those taking it easier this season: in each broadcast, three links creatively related to worldbuilding, to hop from one to another in a breezy digital stroll.
On the next transmission: the AGENDAS tool and more Hyperlink Strolling. See you in two weeks!
And on LinkedIn and Instagram: MOVING DAY, a storyworld we built using IMPACT: Learning Edition, a game (from fellow inventors KnowledgeWorks in Pittsburgh) that ignites deep and systemic conversations about the future of learning, which we angled at the future of a city’s garbage economy.