Most commercial projects today barrel toward the same goals: scalability, virality, ROI. So what do we get? A flattening of imagination. Algorithms optimize for sameness. Brand voices blur into one. That’s why I created Office Hours, The Side Projects Edition. Because imagination isn't a luxury. It's existentially vital. Side projects are where we can explore the edges of ideas, possibility, and wander into the weird. It just doesn't matter if they "work" or not. Side projects are not about winning. Side projects are about exploring, experimenting, and expanding our sense of ‘what could be.’

We don’t suffer from a lack of imagination about the future. We suffer from too much of the same imagination. Every deck, every keynote, every speculative prototype, these things often always and still echo the same tropes: wet streets, noodles, chrome cities, self-driving pods, drone deliveries, network hacking, blue neon, cyberdecks, dystopian biotech. Our futures have been colonized by a lack of imagination. Our futures are flattened by repetition. They are excruciatingly Familiar. They have been market-tested. They have been production designed to be legible and, ultimately — boring. In episode 100 of my podcast, I get on the horn with N O R M A L S. We found ourselves circling this question: Why do so many futures feel interchangeable? And what would it take to build ones that aren’t?

A continuation of an explication of the relationship between Imagination and Structure, using a scene from John Carpenter's super important 1988 film "They Live" to illustrate the struggle of the artist to get others to see the world as they do. We see the dynamics of creative consciousness and rational consciousness and the passionate desire of the Creative Consciousness to help or have the Rational Consciousness see the aspects of the world that lurk below the surface; those that are not immediately visible or obvious. These notes underscore the importance of this relationship in the creative process and the challenges faced by artists in communicating their vision. Probably ideas for a longer essay or pamphlet on the subject.

In this Office Hours Side Projects session, we were presented with three Side Projects: Root Workers, focusing on environmental conservation through community engagement; ElderPunkt, a publication concept aimed at enhancing elder agency; and Communal Heirlooms, a project exploring ways by which community assets can be preserved. Each was presented for 10 minutes, followed by 20+ minutes of discussions and reflection as to the project's unique challenges and opportunities. An overall theme of these Side Projects was considerations as to the importance of emotional connections, community needs, and intergenerational perspectives. Sign up to my newsletter to get reminders for weekly Office Hours! And don't forget to support the work on Patreon! It helps keep the lights on and the ideas flowing.

In the Office Hours Side Projects Edition N°268, participants Mateusz, Gustav, and Stan shared their innovative projects. Mateusz introduced a workshop-based concept to challenge designers' assumptions using AI-generated bureaucratic forms. Gustav presented an intricately crafted world and narrative, merging technology and nature, inspired by his passion for world-building. Stan discussed the potential for a mental health first aid app to bridge communication gaps between neurodiverse and neurotypical individuals, drawing from his work experience with power generation safety protocols. The session highlighted creative problem-solving and interdisciplinary collaboration. Links that were shared during the session are included at the bottom of the post.

A repost of John Seely Brown and Mark Weiser's seminal paper on calm technology, exploring the design principles that enable technology to enhance human experience without overwhelming it. This paper discusses the importance of peripheral awareness, the balance between center and periphery in design, and the role of calm technology in creating a more habitable future. Calm technology is about designing technology that is unobtrusive, enhances human experience, and allows for peripheral awareness without overwhelming the user. It emphasizes the importance of context and the balance between center and periphery in design.

TL;DR is that I'm wondering about sublimated AI interfaces. Is this a helpful idiom when thinking about possible near futures of human-computer interaction? Interfaces modalities and interaction rituals that are subtle, ambient, collaborative rather than direct commands. This approach aspires to be that which preserves human agency and enhances creative flow, making AI a seamless extension of the user’s creative process. Just want to try the functional study of this? Try Vibewriter. (I fixed the ‘email signup’ flow, fwiw.) This draws a bit of Mark Weiser's foray into Calm Computing and his collaborations with John Seely Brown, reflections on the kinds of antagonisms that have cropped up around the end of everything-that-is-human-as-ai-takes over, along with my own interests in the alt and thinking about this new terrain with AI as a place where our old ways of sense-making and ontologies might be rethought, reimagined, and reconfigured.

How we lost — and rediscovered — the craft of writing. A fictional conceit from an AI future. Imagining a possible future or even an adjacent present in which writing is a lost art, and a new generation rediscovers it through mechanical contrivances and the exercise of their paralimbicis gyrus. A piece of short speculative fiction that emanates from pondering a story that would be told to explain the meaning, purpose and context of these various AI Design Fiction projects in the realm of writing and composition that I've been working on.

How does one describe those things that will become obvious in hindsight, but do not make sense in the present? The value of imagining alternatives to the present is that it helps us see the value in things that are so obvious that we don't see them. I've beenn thinking about this notion, and I wish there was a word for it. It's the ‘wheels on luggage’ effect — the ‘what took them so long..’ wondering. Jogging wasn't a thing until, by force of commitment and fortitude, Bill Bowerman writes a book explaining it to a widespread audience. The Fosbury Flop was a dramatic rethinking of the high jump that was so obvious in hindsight, but not at the time. Perhaps it was even scandalous, or I like to imagine it was. ‘Dude..don't do it!’ I often bring this logic to the studies, experiments, and futures wonderings that I do here at Near Future Laboratory. Trying to find a kernel...