FUTURE PHILOSOPHICAL PILLS

The Two Decks

The FPP are organized in two decks of cards: The Pills and The Prompts – each containing 40 cards. By combining cards from the two decks, you can create a number of chance-based, situated ‘readings’, where the philosophical terms (Pills) intersect with suggestions, questions, provocations and nudges (Prompts).

This process will open up routes for adventurous thinking, conceptual exploration and playful philosophy-in-action to inform your design practice.

The Ethos

The FPP uses chance-based interrogations into the unknown to generate opportunities to make meaning, generate inspiration and build knowledge. This ‘divinatory’ ethos is embedded in their method of use. By randomly selecting and combining Pills and Prompts you can build a transversal  and unexpected collection of ideas and references. How these resonate with each other and produce new ideas, is the result of the ‘chance-based’ input together with the expertise, perspective and point of view you bring. How you interpret the cards that chance has served you is a narrative journey to help you reflect critically on, and re-orient, your design practice.

This chance-based method is significant because:

  • It is based on a radical openness to what the future may (or may not) bring, counteracting ingrained risk-averse tendencies to predict, control, and prep for the future (futureproofing).
  • It disrupts established academic research by leading you through an ‘unchosen’ path where serendipity trumps intention, and where you are called to co-create meaning.
CLICK HERE FOR THE PILLS DECK
CLICK HERE FOR THE PROMPTS DECK

Example of Future Philosophical Pills Workshop

  • Choose, pick or assign one Pill
  • Use it as a lens to examine your existing project
  • Use it as a lens to brainstorm a given theme expressed through collective images research e.g. around Future 2050
CLICK HERE TO EXPLORE AND USE THE FUTURE PHILOSOPHICAL PILLS