Atlas of Weak Signals

For most of us, the term, as well as the concept of “Atlas of Weak Signals”, is new. I first interpreted each of the words as I understood them.

“Atlas” is a mapping/cartography tool. It sounds cooler than “map”.

“Signals” for me, coming from a computer science and engineering lens, means electronic signals. Interpreting a signal as “weak” is like fuzziness. Something that is there but unclear and perhaps hard to distinguish from others. They may also be hard to trace to the source.

I also kind of visualise it at catching some unknown or mixed frequency on the car radio, where you either have to fine tune the knob and/or physically navigate to get stronger signal.

The work begins in looking for these weak signals from possible emergent futures.

The paper on AoWS: Exploring Weak Signals To Design and Prototype for Emergent Futures

The ongoing Atlas: here

Design Space¶

These tools exist in this hierarchy: Design Space contains AoWS and AoWS contains the weak signals.

ELIF: the Design Space is like a mind map of things that might happen in the future (Weak Signals), connecting them to your own research and experience (1PP)

AoWS Group Activities¶

Class Activity¶

The first activity is involved the entire class using the toolkit for the first time.

Group Activity¶

We then repeated the activity in smaller groups of four.

Suggest new cards¶

Weak Signals:
Humanitarian Engineering and Design,
Healthcare - I am unsure if Holistic is a good term for this, but basically the healthcare considering the patient as an entire person beyond the medicines and treatments, and as part of a community

Random Trigger: Fast Fashion

Design Sprint¶

During my undergrad, my friend and I created a card game similar to this. It was called “Design Sprint”. Ours was focused on current and more localized context (“stronger signals”?) with the goal of teaching Design Thinking by coming up with a design intervention. The AoWS cards are far more rooted in research, more conceptual and radical.

Building MY Design Space¶

16 October Reviews¶

Had reviews with Guillem and Jana this monday.

The morning session was with Grayson and Drishya, their ideas were interesting! Loved how Drishya is so knowledgeable and passionate about differences in human bodies and how Grayson was already looking into connecting with groups/communities.

Key points

Good to have a to-do list in the design space
Communication practices in sustainability have become marketing (greenwashing?)
Policy is not agile
We can use GPT/tech as meditation and reflection
Reddit can be an avenue for data gathering. Reddit/GPT is also an timestamp of society.
Developing methodologies and building tools are important (and are part of the research)
The “solution” is/can be exploration
the connecting thread in MY design space seems like care: community and planetary

On Health-related issues

Open practice in fablabs in health (sector) is not common (so this is kind of a novel area)
Maker practices are not usually related to the body

Resources

On food waste: Too good to go
The Centre de Cultura Contemporània de Barcelona
On gender and sex: Judith Butler
On plastics: Plastic Justice

To-do

On Climate Accountability: Do I want to tackle the cause (like informing the public) or the consequences (like what to do with the trash)?

Initial Version¶

This is my ongoing Design Space. For the initial submission, I have created a board with various concepts that I am interested in. The Weak Signals included are: Climate Conscience, Rural Futures, Truth Wars, Technology for Equality. I also added Holistic Heathcare and Well-being.

It still is a brain dump of the various issues I want to tackle. I plan to update this, adding connections and tuning in to a specific topic, as we go.

My early concern is that, am I looking at only current and local problems, and less at emergent futures?

Archive¶

Multiscalar Personal Design Space

Personal AoWS Board