run within the Caravan, by considering their long-term possible impacts if scaled up. The Future Histories project sets us in 2031’s Ahmedabad, looking back at the last fifteen years of the city’s development as a connected community, through imagined news headlines, short provocations, first-personal social posts and other media. Bobby, Laura and I created a stream of news based on the outputs of the Caravan’s other projects, woven with provocations from the group earlier in the week, research on the state of India’s digital development, and discussion with people that live here. Primarily, it’s a list of stories that paint a picture of potential shifts and trends in development, and that invite questions about the positive and negative impacts to different societal groups of technological development. We beta-tested the approach at the Wednesday show in the Conflictorium by sticking headlines up on the wall, with a pad of paper for visitors to suggest their own. The permanent version is a digital piece that allows you to scroll through a timeline of the key stories and social responses. To bridge the gap between the city’s huge population of craftsman and the screen, I created an object— by using a locally made terracotta chai cup as an interaction tool to move through the timeline. Reflecting the city’s culture up-cycling of discarded materials, the internals are from a very second-hand USB mouse, re-wired to suit the purpose and embedded in a teak body turned in NID’s carpentry workshop. The project has been a fascinating and challenging experience— using elements of my previous experience in strategic communications planning to think about audiences and the ‘Why’ of any piece of activity in a new environment, and contrasting that with developing new or seldom-used hands-on crafting skills to adapt materials to a new use. I just wish I’d had the time to learn to use the workshop’s lathe to turn the wood from a solid cube into the finished article. The project has a possible future life ahead of it, as the digital version will be live for the foreseeable future at futurehistory. adriancockle.com, and it’ll be great to add to it as new trends and developments come to light. and it’ll be great to add to it as new trends and developments come to light. Sign me up for the next one, Jon.
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