Constructing Social Futures Conference

Experiencing scenarios through dramatized

narratives - CASE: Dwellers in Agile Cities

Jouko Myllyoja

&

Sanna-Kaisa Patrikainen

26/06/2019 VTT – beyond the obvious

26/06/2019 VTT – beyond the obvious

Improvise! Supporting organizational learning and innovation by intervention research and interaction training (Koivisto & Myllyoja 2011)

The development organizations through enhancing their communicating capabilities

Co-operated with interaction designers from Improvisation theatre Stella Polaris

Financed by The Finnish Work Environment Fund

”Under the surface!” - drama workshop: Towards polyphonic and interactive mining industry (Myllyoja et al. 2015)

Part of the Sustainable, Acceptable Mining project, funded by Tekes Innovation Fund

Objective for this workshop was to find new tools to improve dialogue in Finnish mining field

Participants represented different stakeholders in Finnish mining field, including industrial actors, NGOs and researchers.

Dialogue, work and future -drama workshops (2016-2017) (Dufva et al. 2017)

Project funded by Prime Minister’s Office of Finland

Aim: To create differentiated, polyphonic and participatory discussion about different forms of work in the future

Two drama workshops among field experts. Three drama workshops among high school students.

Performing dramatized scenes in the final seminar of the project

EARLIER DRAMA CASES

26/06/2019

DAC – Dwellers in Agile Cities is a research consortium funded by the Academy of Finland Strategic Research Council

for the years 2016-2019 http://www.agilecities.fi/en/

The project has been carried out in as a co-operation of different research organizations and stakeholders VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland Ltd University of Tampere / School of Social Sciences and Humanities Finnish Environment Institute University of Tampere / School of Management Tampere University of Technology / School of Architecture Cities of Espoo, Helsinki, Seinäjoki and Tampere

The project consist of six sub-projects: Future City, Social diversity, Robust solutions, Enabling city, Innovative design,

Roadmap to agile cities. The scenario building process was conducted as a part of Future city subproject.

“DAC-project focuses on this urban mosaic of needs and creates measures for improving social urban development,

with particular interest on experiments and innovation, new partnership formations, hybrid housing solutions and

flexible ideas about collaboration”.

DWELLERS IN AGILE CITIES (DAC)

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Two drama workshops were organized in districts

of Härmälänranta and Hiedanranta in Tampere.

One drama workshops organized among university

students. Contextual aim of drama workshops:

Creating data for regional development purposes

emphasizing dwellers emotions and needs.

Performing dramatized narratives / scenarios in

sustainable urbanization conference hosted by the

Academy of Finland. Aim of dramatized narratives

was to disseminate project contents in an impactful

way.

Methodological aim of applying drama in project:

Creating understanding on the interface of drama

methods and futures studies

APPLYING DRAMA IN DAC

DRAMATIZED NARRATIVES AS A PART OF WORKSHOP DESIGN

THEMES: District actors & social exclusion

9.00 - 9.10 Introduction

Facilitators words – setting the scene

Researcher’s word: About district & demographical changes

9.10 - 9.40 Warm-up exercises

Name, gesture, voice

Improvised exercise

Statues

9.30 - 11.00 identifying district actors: Past, present, future

Observing their characteristics and needs

Building characters

Dialogues between characters

Generating service ideas

Statues & interpretations

Gallery of characters

11.00 - 11.40 Minority report: About social exclusion

Status exercise

Personal follow-on story

Writing 2 minutes story of: My thoughts about disparity

Aquarium discussion from roles

Researcher driven discussion

Theme: Communities

12.30 - 12.40 Researcher’s word: Futures of communities

12.40 - 12.55 Warm-up exercises

12.55 - 14.15 Different communities in a district

Generating ideas

Collective selection of communities in focus

Drama explorations

Building characters

Dialogues between characters

Aquarium discussion

14.35 - 15.05 Future image: In a Sauna

Personal follow-on story

Performing a written scene

Discussion

15.05 - 15.35 Future image: Transportation

Personal follow-on story

Performing a written scene

Researcher driven discussion

DAC SCENARIOS

City provides a platform for communities• Agility is created in collective actions, unofficial structures and flexibility• Wellbeing is shapened in local, easy accessible and mainly self-organized services

City provides a platform for individual actions• Agility comes from variety and competition• Wellbeing is shapened by various local individually tailored services

City is an active actor• Agility with shared risks and benefits as well as clear structures• Wellbeing is shaped by strong embedding into city actions

Collective

Individual

Bottom-up Top-down

ALLOTMENT GARDEN

MARKET SQUARE

SPORTS FIELD AIRPORT

City is a part of global network

• Agility is created in large international market network, effectivity and optimal actions• Wellbeing with attractive services

7

MARKET

SQUARE

FEEDBACK

26/06/2019

2 2

0

4

2

DID NOT WORK AT ALL

DID NOT WORK THAT WELL

NEUTRAL WORKED QUITE WELL

WORKED REALLY WELL

General assessment of a performance

Series1

FEEDBACK: What did you saw or experienced through the performance (about city)?

26/06/2019

“Brought up conflicts that may occur through different life choices of individuals. Brought up frictions contributed by

societal changes.”

“Emphasized the diversity and complexity of issues”

“Performing scenarios by drama offers possibilities... Also scenario method has strengths and weaknesses. It is

clear and illustrative way to present futures. On the other hand, the future is rarely (or ever) as distinctive and clear

as scenario.”

“I think the performance wasn't about cities, but rather about futures society and roles of individuals in there.”

“Artistic methods bring up feelings and images. Performance did not go that deep as this short. The differences

between scenarios did not occur that much.”

“What was the meaning of the performance? Would need more systemic approach and distinctive set-up.”

“Stayed on abstractive level. Hand-out was good.”

“All scenes presented events that occurred in the city. Differences between themes stayed vague and blended - as

the real life is. In the middle of community sprit, people can be very egocentric. I would have wanted to shout out

some opinions during the performance, to make it more dynamic and more coincidental, as the city is.”

FEEDBACK: What changes or possibilities do you see with this kind of approach?

26/06/2019

“Depends on individual”

“Fresh and exceptional”

“Possibility as bringing in change to seminar days and to increate experiential factor”

“Can be only one part of outcome, not as a primary way of presenting large scientific work”

“Challenging approach, the message have to be clear”

“May complement traditional approaches particularly in topics where there is less hard fact

available; may involve mental images, emotions, feelings and inconsistencies from the view point of

dweller”

“May suffer the lack of credibility among the professional audience”

“Citizens could function better as a target group”

“Biggest possibility may take place in presenting phenomena as holistic – through drama it could be

presented more different kind of impacts that related to some change”

FEEDBACK: What were your assessment factors for valuing the performance?

26/06/2019

”Dissemination of research results”

”Did not understand the message, hard to value”

”Impact, concept, quality of implementation, response of the audience”

”Very interesting as an experience. If I had valued it as some kind of knowledge package, I would

have given lower grades.”

Poses good opportunity as a dissemination method, however, there is still work to do on building

systemic entity and binding contents in practices”

”Raised a LOT of thoughts, I have been thinking this exceptionally much afterwards… in terms of

new thinking it certainly did work”

“I appreciate the this kind of new attempt to illustrate scenarios”

“Genre - I did not get what was the genre of the performance”

26/06/2019

Intervention needs to be articulated/facilitated carefully

• Adequate description of the context required

• May require some warm-up, changing the orientation towards more “arts benign” mode

• To enable space for reactions / commenting

Integrating foresight and arts-based methodologies requires

• Understanding of foresight methodologies

• Holding expertise on practices of arts-based methods

• Substance knowledge

• Resources for iterations

Dramatized narratives holds potential for delivering, communicating or creating thoughts that are not

articulated in a research context as such. Narratives can be considered as an aesthetic personal

experience for each individual in the audience, and as such, may function as a route for novel

discussion, novel understanding and learning to emerge.

Practical observations on conducting dramatized narratives in public venues emphasizing substance expertise

26/06/2019

Drama methodologies represent action-based, embodied, participatory, inclusive way to

imagine, simulate and design the realities collectively

Drama interventions can create parallel or complementary understanding on different

topics

The core of drama takes place in its’ ability to capture emotional sides of the topic of

interest – to dive ”under the surface”

Primary mechanism to create novel knowledge appears through differentiated,

polyphonic discussion / dialogue that drama methods enable - in contrast to somehow

more traditional qualitative enquiries and workshopping techniques

Drama method represent collective way of exploring the different possibilities of the

reality – and futures.

Drama methods nurtures imagination and creates inspiration

Drama interventions as a part of qualitative research processes

26/06/2019

DRAMA IN THE VARIETY OF METHODOLOGIES

• Inayatullah (2006; 2013) places drama as an example of an

approach that can imbibe other ways of knowing in

foresight processes, likewise some other creative data

acquisition methods such as scenario games, postcards of

future, or other arts.

• Pässilä et al. (2013) elaborates drama as an artistic

mediation to facilitate future-oriented knowledge, and as

a process, where inner knowing can lead towards

collaborative decisions about the future.

• Ramos (2006) introduces the concept of “Future jamming”

where he depicts drama as an example of employing

instinctive aspects when communicating foresight

contents in social spaces.

• More generally, Finley (2008) identifies arts-based inquiries

holding unique methodological potential as futuristic and

socially responsible form of research.

Theoretical reflections – Applied theatre

26/06/2019

Applied technics can be theoretically linked to research-based theatre, which is understood as conducting or

disseminating research (Beck et al. 2011; Belliveau 2006; Gallagher 2007).

From the perspective of practice as research, Mackey (2016) describes applied theatre as an approach for finding,

creating, uncovering, acquiring, expanding and disseminating knowledge. There, all contributing partners -

whether researchers, artistic intervention designers, workshop participants or co-facilitators - are considered as non-

hierarchical knowledge producers.

Arts-based inquiry, the use of artistic methods to understand experiences of people involving in these processes

(McNiff 2008), allows embedding different kind of knowing to research processes. This knowing may cover

utilization of affective experiences, senses, bodies, imagination and emotions (Finley 2008).

Arts-based inquiry does not only concern involving artists, but also to concern applying arts-based methods

among different interest groups such as researchers and workshops attendees (Savin-Baden & Wimpenny 2014).

It is also noteworthy to observe interconnections between action, observation and learning. There, we can attach

the study to reflexive mode of working, understood as observing the world and ourselves in it through our actions

(Pässilä et al. 2013).

Theoretical reflections - foresight

26/06/2019

Narrative foresight (Milojevic & Inayatullah 2015, 152) focuses not on the veracity of the future— true or false

dimension—but on discovering and creating new stories that better meet needs and desires.

Applying drama as a qualitative inquiry method may not fill the gap between real life experiences and possible

futures - the need underlined by Candy & Dunagan (2017, 137) in the frames of experiential foresight (Bok & Ruve

2007; Candy 2010; Candy 2014; Candy & Dunagan 2017) - but it can work as one route of providing new kind of

understanding into foresight processes - constructing realities, pasts, presents, futures, utopias etc.

Through participatory activities that are facilitated by immersive technics such as drama, we can attain different and

differentiated kind of understanding about futures. As then, we may be on the way towards more hybridised

foresight practice that is both epistemically reflexive and aesthetically infusive, the need underlined for

development of futures studies by Ramos (2006, 1119).

Anticipatory action learning (2006, 656-657) shares an ideas of deep participation, collaborative and reflexive

working methods, contents giving way to process learning, and creation of forums where aspects of knowledge

creation and learning are combined.

According to Slaughter (1995; 2004) the future is not somewhere outside us, but rather in our in consciousness, in

our human capacity to cognize consequences, changes, differences, and temporalities. Future can be seen as a

principle of present action.

Beck, J., Belliveau, G., Lea, G. & Wager, A. (2011). Delineating a Spectrum of Research-Based Theatre. Qualitative Inquiry 17(8) 687 - 700.

Belliveau, G. (2006). Engaging in drama: Using arts-based research to explore a social justice project in teacher education. International Journal of Education & the Arts, 7(5).

Bok, B. and Ruve, S. (2007). Experiential Foresight: Participative Simulation Enables Social Reflexivity in a Complex World. Journal of Futures Studies, November 2007, 12(2): 111 - 120.

Candy, S. (2010). The futures of everyday life. University of Hawaii at Manoa, Department of Political Science.

Candy, S. (2014). Experiential futures: stepping into OCADU’s time machine? The Futurist, 48(5), 34–37.

Candy, S. and Dunagan, J. (2017). ”Designing an experiential scenario: the people who vanished”. Futures 86: 136–153.

Dufva, M., Halonen, M., Kari, M., Koivisto, T., Koivisto, R. & Myllyoja, J. (2017). Toward a shared understanding of the future of work. Publications of the Govenrment´s analysis, assessment and research activities 33/2017.

Finley, S. (2008) ‘Arts-based research’, in N. K. Denzin and Y. S.Lincoln (eds.) The SAGE Handbook of Qualitative Research, pp. 71- 82. Thousand Oaks: Sage.

Gallagher, K. (2007). Theatre pedagogy and performed research: Respectful forgeries and faithful betrayals. Theatre Research in Canada, 28(2), 105-119.

Inayatullah (2006). Anticipatory action learning: theory and practice. Futures 38, 656-666.

Inayatullah (2013). Futures Studies: theories and methods. In: Fernando Gutierrez Junquera, ed., There’s a Future: Visions for a better world. Madrid, BBVA, 2013, 36-66.

Koivisto, T. & Myllyoja J. (2011). Improvise! ─ Supporting organizational learning and innovation by intervention research and interaction training. VTT publications 779.

References

Mackey, S. (2016). Applied theatre and practice as research: polyphonic conversations, Research in Drama Education: The Journal of Applied Theatre and Performance, 21:4, 478-491.

Milojevic, I. & Inayatullah, S. (2015). Narrative foresight. Futures 73 (2015) 151–162.

Myllyoja, J., Åkerman, M., Peltomaa, J. & Wessberg, N. Applying drama as a way to inmbed dwellers’ experiences as a part of foresight (2018). Review in the Journal of ”Research & Progress (Tiede & edistys)”. Research Union of Finland. 2/2018.

Myllyoja, J. (2017). Towards futures by knowledge, action and emotions: Experiences from the interface of drama interventions and foresight. Futura 3/2017. The Finnish Society for Futures Studies.

Myllyoja, J. (2017). Drama interventions and futures. Bachelor thesis in the field of performing arts. Metropolia University of Applied Sciences.

Myllyoja, J. & Koivisto, T. (2016). Constructing lenses to observe impacts of drama interventions. Conference paper & presentation. Arts without borders? -conference, University of the Arts Helsinki.

Myllyoja, J.; Eerola, T. & Peltonen, L. (2015). Exploring multi-toned mining industry by drama intervention . Journal of Region and Health. 44: 2 (2015), 54–59.

Popper, R. (2008). Foresight Methodology, in Georghiou, L., Cassingena, J., Keenan, M., Miles, I. and Popper, R. (eds.), The Handbook of Technology Foresight, Edward Elgar, Cheltenham, pp. 44-88.

Pässila, A., Uotila, T. and Melkas, H. (2013). Facilitating future-oriented collaborative knowledge creation by using artistic organizational innovation methods: Experiences from a Finnish wood-processing company. Futures 47 (2013) 59–68.

Ramos, J. (2006). Consciousness, culture and the communication of foresight. Futures 38 (2006) 1119–1124.

Savin-Baden, M. & Wimpenny, K. (2014). A Practical Guide to Arts-related Reseach. Sense Publishers.

Slaughter, R. (2004). Futures beyond dystopia: creating social foresight. London: RoutledgeFalmer.

Slaughter, R. (1995). The foresight principle. Westport, CT: Adamantine Press.

References