2019 Futurespective Convivium

DesignInquiry’s Futurespective Convivium — CALL FOR PAPERS

Date: Saturday, 2 November 2019, 11-5  

Institute of Contemporary Art at MECA, Portland, Maine

Organized in conjunction with DesignInquiry’s Futurespective exhibition, October 2019-January 2020

DesignInquiry invites your participation in the Futurespective Convivium at the ICA in Portland. Neither an academic symposium nor a design conference, the Futurespective Convivium is a congenial day-long gathering in which we will debate and discuss and ruminate and celebrate the significance of a futurespective perspective in design and culture. (50 words)

Though management gurus have commandeered the futurespective as a team building activity, DesignInquiry prefers the multi-layered approach of avantgardist performer John Cale, whose Barbican Futurespective (in March 2018) rejected nostalgia while finding new possibilities in the past. For Cale, futurespective was “doing old material in a new way”–presenting “different moments, anchored in the period when they were created, and redesigned for today’s ideas.” (64 words)

What does it mean to rethink the past in the present in order to point to the future? (18 words)

We invite thinkers and makers from diverse disciplines, both inside and outside of design (and inside and out of the academy), to answer this question as appropriate to each person’s practice and discourse. Proposals should take the form of a 500 word abstract for a 100 word paper. (48 words)

Yes, you read that correctly. (5 words)

Brevity should not be mistaken for a lack of rigor. Rather, it suggests taking only the most important, critical, and essential part of your idea and refining it for presentation. Think of a 100 word paper like a finely-cut diamond or a well-drawn parti, like a haiku on steroids or a pecha kucha on a diet or a tweet that’s meaningful. TED believes that 18 minutes is “long enough to be serious and short enough to hold people’s attention.” DesignInquiry believes that 100 words is short enough to be serious and long enough to hold people’s attention. (97 words)

Proposals should be emailed to futurespective@designinquiry.net no later than SEPTEMBER 3 (right after Labor Day). Please include the paper title in your subject line and paste your 500 word abstract in the body of your email, followed by your name and one sentence biography. Collaborative proposals (for sequential 100 word papers) are welcome, but each collaborator should submit an individual abstract. All proposals will be acknowledged. (64 words)

Direct all questions about the Futurespective Convivium to gabrielleesperdy@designinquiry.net