ATLAS OF WEAK SIGNALS¶
Josephine Bourghardt 16.10.22
During the second week of MDEF we were introduced to the Atlas of Weak Signals. Weak signals can be defined as the first indicator of a change or an emerging issue in the present that may become significant in the future. Investigating and discovering weak signals has been used in business settings to spot upcoming trends for investment.
The Atlas of Weak Signals is a toolkit consisting of cards that recognise weak signals, random triggers and areas of opportunity into a practical space to navigate and understand possible emerging scenarios based on underlying trends in our current world. It facilitates seeking opportunities, threats, challenges and shared visions for innovation, policymaking, intervention, research and business opportunities in the future.
The first exercise when using the AoWS toolkit was to randomly choose two weak signals, three random triggers and one area of opportunity and analyse what these mean, how they can be connected and what possible interventions could be. This what a great exercise to start understanding the methodology of how they can be used without directly choosing own areas of interest.
Afterwards we looked through all the cards and chose one that was associated with our ‘fight’ posters and vision. Thereafter we walked around the city to take photos of interventions regarding the card we chose. I chose the card Regenerative Design as it is an overall concept of my vision and Fight poster.
While walking around the city I passed through the SuperBlocks in Sant Antoni, one of the projects opening up spaces in the city where cars have been dominant. The projects Super Blocks address challenges such as mobility, public space, bio diversity and social cohesion, involving the participation of local residents and organisations. It is a low cost, small scale intervention that adds spaces of greenery for both humans and animals to coexist in urban environments.
While continuing the journey through the city I walked passed a wall of graffiti paintings, where one of the art pieces cited ‘Lo que era antes’ - what has been - with a painting of a flower growing out of a tin can. What if what we produced could actually provide nurture to this flower growing, instead of overusing this flowers natural resources and spreading material that it can’t use…
PERSONAL DESIGN SPACE
This toolkit is part of a method to help us communicate thoughts and concepts while supporting to detect a direction of our vision and areas of interest. When starting on my personal design space showing areas of interest and direction narrowing down the selection of cards to just a few was a challenge. I realised I have many interests, although when connecting them there is an overall theme.
The Weak Signals chosen were Climate Conscience, Fight Anthropocene Conflicts, Inter-Species Collaboration and Human-Machine Creative Collaborations, where Regenerative Design was placed in the middle as a random trigger and binding theme.
The random triggers around these Weak Signals can be divided into different sub categories. One evolves around working with material resources and production locally and reusability to design within planetary boundaries. This is prolonged into the area of collaborating with machines, questioning supply chains where open source innovation, personal fabrication and local production such as neighbourhood FabLabs could take part in the challenges of the first area. To extend these areas into practice the area of communicating and educating residents and users becomes one of the seeds and necessities for interventions in the other areas to start.
How can we design within planetary boundaries on a local level? How can we create awareness and understanding of what citizens can do with the resources that are around them? I am looking forward to the upcoming weeks where we will be introduced to many different topics, as well as reflecting and engaging with topics in my neighbourhood and home that can be opportunities of interest.
Some areas of interest that have arised while producing this Design Space are learning more about bio materials and synthetic biology, how it can be produced, used and reused. Using what already exists in nature to decrease waste and regenerate fuel for existing ecosystems. Other topics are about recycling waste and the recycling systems that exist in the area that I live, which I feel to be hard to understand and use. Many people I have spoken to in the neighbourhood are also unsure of the procedures and how it works. Can these be improved and communicated more clearly to decrease waste in the area?
Another area of interest was sparked when taking photos of the Superblocks for this weeks assignment. The area in Sant Antoni where this block is, has created a space for people and other living things to co-exist with less cars, more plants and space. It is great for biodiversity to create these spaces, yet every night it is completely lit up by the street lights contributing to light pollution in urban environments. This disrupts ecosystems posing threat in particular to nocturnal wildlife, having negative impacts on plant and animal physiology. It can confuse the migratory patterns of animals, alter competitive interactions of animals and cause physiological harm. The rhythm of life is orchestrated by the natural diurnal patterns of light and dark; so disruption to these patterns impacts the ecological dynamics with just as big effect on humans, who are dependent on natural body cycles and the production of melatonin, which are regulated by light and dark. If humans are exposed to light while sleeping, melatonin production can be suppressed, which can lead to sleep disorders and other health problems such as fatigue, stress and increased anxiety among other things. This topic comes from a direct effect of my own sleep being disrupted from the overflow of artificial light.
The subjects and signals in my Design Space are areas I want to learn more about. I am at the moment looking at these areas from a bigger perspective, being open to opportunities that are arising around me that can lead to an understanding of what areas to more specifically focus on.
