The Workshop
This is a description of the workshop.
Summary
Start with this: an image of a Fender guitar listed for sale, featuring a colorful design and details about the item on a webpage. Buttons for purchasing options highlighting integration of cryptocurrency transactions. The setting is speculative fast-food branding, the concept of virtual collectibles, the metaverse. An e-commerce platform interface; the intersection of technology, food culture, design fiction. Themes of consumerism and digital identity in a playful yet thought-provoking manner. This is what I produced during a workshop imagining into a possible future of the metaverse. Situated roughly in the year 2049, participants worked through explorations as to what the metaverse might become, how it might be used, and what cultural, social, and economic implications it might have. Of course, in my group, I steered the activity and outcome closer to a speculative artifact from the future, rather than a more traditional form of reporting that might be considered predictive. Working from the future backwards to the present day — and representing a possible (plausible) outcome/implication as an artifact is more my speed. In this case, the artifact I produced was a “page” from some kind of collectibles trading “platform” that transposed the vibe of collectibles, fast-food, branding and so forth imagining various evolutions (brands into platforms; restaurants as hot-seat workplaces; language/idioms morphing); etcetera as you can see if you pick through the page.
Written By: Julian Bleecker
Semantic Tags DESIGN FICTIONFUTURE STUDIESMETAVERSESPECULATIVE DESIGNWORKSHOP
asu-metaverse-2049-workshopStart with this: an image of a Fender guitar listed for sale, featuring a colorful design and details about the item on a webpage. Buttons for purchasing options highlighting integration of cryptocurrency transactions. The setting is speculative fast-food branding, the concept of virtual collectibles, the metaverse. An e-commerce platform interface; the intersection of technology, food culture, design fiction. Themes of consumerism and digital identity in a playful yet thought-provoking manner.
This is what I produced during a workshop imagining into a possible future of the metaverse. Situated roughly in the year 2049, participants worked through explorations as to what the metaverse might become, how it might be used, and what cultural, social, and economic implications it might have.
Of course, in my group, I steered the activity and outcome closer to a speculative artifact from the future, rather than a more traditional form of reporting that might be considered predictive. Working from the future backwards to the present day — and representing a possible (plausible) outcome/implication as an artifact is more my speed. In this case, the artifact I produced was a “page” from some kind of collectibles trading “platform” that transposed the vibe of collectibles, fast-food, branding and so forth imagining various evolutions (brands into platforms; restaurants as hot-seat workplaces; language/idioms morphing); etcetera as you can see if you pick through the page.