Tricksters Tricked: Self Presenting Picture Puzzle

SELF

PRESENTING

PICTURE

PUZZLE

PRÆFACEThe following are a few slides I presented at the recent mini-conference called “Tricksters Tricked: (un)Covering Identity”, held in Vanabbe Museum in Eindhoven during the Dutch Design Week’2010.

I was announced in the event’s program as a ‘mystery speaker’ (and it was a surprise for me too, I was invited to speak just a few days before the event).

As a result, the slides were prepared in a rush, and story is very raw at the moment (I was also told that it’s to complex to tell in 20+ min I was given). I treat it as a stub, and plan to work it out further later.)

STORYI decided not to tell a grand story, with a predefined meaning and ‘morale’, but instead play a mini-game, present a set of (visual) pieces, out of which the audience could assemble their own ‘puzzle’.

Since the theme of the conference was about identity and its (mis)(re)presentations, I also decided to make my story a bit auto-biographical, self-referential.

And yes, it was most visual, I told the story over the slides with almost no texts on them; I had to add a few notes here and there after, to make at least somewhat comprehensible.

PIECE #1 ‘PSYCHOTHERAPY’

The mug presented to meby my friend who knew that I study ‘psychology’.

I actually was a clinical psychologist early in my life.

Psychoanalysis

IS

But what is ‘psychotherapy’?

Even in case of only one of the schools of psychotherapy the answer will vary greatly.

And by now there are dozens of different schoolsof psychotherapy…

In an effort to define my take on psychotherapy

“There were doors all around the hall,

but they were all locked, and when Alice

had been all the way down one side

and up the other, trying every door,

she walked down the middle, wondering

how she was ever to get out again.”In an effort to define my take on psychotherapy, I present a typical ‘client’

“There were doors all around the hall,

but they were all locked, and when Alice

had been all the way down one side

and up the other, trying every door,

she walked down the middle, wondering

how she was ever to get out again.”

… a typical solution of the problem (‘guided personal transformation’)

PIECE #2:‘DESIGN’

I spent last ten years in a large design company, and it’s a largepart of myself now (and a lot of ‘insider information’ about the discipline of design.)

What is design?

NB: (not so) Coincidentally, the conference was a part of the Dutch Design Week.

DESIGN

Using my ‘insider information’, I shared with the audience the BIG SECRET:

DOES NOT EXIST

RE DESIGN

WHAT EXSTS IS ALWAYS

Design is always about the ‘next thing’, always about the project of ‘better future’.

But is not about ‘the next thing’.

It’s about the next dream.

Brain activities while reading

a book

Brain activities while ‘reading’

a blog

It’s about the next us.

PART #3‘CENTRAL ASIA’

I am actually from Central Asia,the place seen by many as a bridge between the West and the East.

‘wu-wei’ is often understood by the West as non-action… but it’s rather an effortless action

(As a side note: an easy, effortless (=magic) action is perceived very suspiciously in the Western culture.)

“An ideal invention has to solve the initial problem and then itself disappear...”

Genrikh Altshuller(1926-1998)

Inventor of TRIZ (*)

(*) Theory of Solving the Inventors’ Problems

Here I tried to make the first effortof compiling the puzzle pieces: both psychotherapy and design should ‘disappear’ when the result is achieved: therapy and therapist should be forgotten; design should be ideally ‘immaterial’ (=‘designless’)

To prepare us for the possible futures.To create the future selves.

But what is the ‘problem’ we are trying to solve?

PART #4‘FUTURE’

I said that I with a design company.

But it was Strategic Futures design.

So I am a ‘future researcher’ too.

Many people think that the ‘future studies’is what the famous octopus Paulus was ‘doing’ so miraculously.

But futures studies is not about predicting the future with certainty .

“The trouble with our times is that

the future is not what it used to be “

Paul Valéry

COMPLEXFUTURES

Future studies is about imagining(im) possible futures

Not only complexity related to new technologies…e.g., ‘Nano Supermarket’ in Eindhoven

Complexity of our socio-technological systems is to surpass the complexity of natural ecosystems

Alas, not all of these possible futuresare nice and rosy :-(

I believe that we indeed must prepare for the complex futures, ever more complex futures

I also believe that various ‘Ctrl-Z’, ‘back to order’calls for ‘simple worlds’ are not only intellectually coward, but plain dangerous.

I was only able to briefly point to a few interesting examples of new identity strategies for complex futures

Dialogical selves engaged in self-reflective loops leading to integral personalities ?

Playful experiments to develop new skills of multiple avatars management ?

(Contemporary) art as an ongoing play-ground to enhance our imagination ?

If this name wouldn’t be taken,I’d love to use it for my own company helping people to explore complex futures.

Slava.Kozlov@summn.com

www.summn.com

But ours is also not a bad name :-)