“The Extrapolation Factory is an imagination-based studio for design-led futures studies, founded by Chris Woebken and Elliott P. Montgomery. The studio develops experimental methods for collaboratively prototyping, experiencing and impacting future scenarios.”
Joining the founders of The Extrapolation Factory, Natsuki helped install two interactive exhibitions—Junk Mail Machine at The Storefront for Art and Architecture in October 2013 and Futures Capsules at the 2014 TEDActive conference in Whistler, British Columbia.
Junk Mail Machine
Junk Mail Machine is an experimental futuring exhibition at The Storefront for Art and Architecture. Visitors were encouraged to imagine new and augmented needs, as well as services and businesses that might arise in response. The “machine” was available for trial use for two days, rapidly translating visitors’ visions and imaginations into “future junk mails” – ready to be sent to an address of visitor’s choice and displayed at the storefront.
The exhibition proposed a process of imagining and visualizing diverse futures for New York City’s commerce, through the eyes of individuals. Visitors engaged with custom futuring tools, props, and thought diagrams to envision these scenarios. After visitors designed and answered basic questions about their imagined services, they dropped the form into the slot "for processing." 7 – 10 minutes later a finished piece of "future junk mail" came out from the "ready" slot.
Although junk mails are rarely welcomed, they reference facets of today’s technological and cultural landscape. Often they are the artifacts portrays an interesting part of present-day services, products, and offers. Over the course of the exhibition, a range of future services and businesses were imagined, including Artisanal GMOs, the Ancestry Afterlife Dream Hotel, and Limbs for Loans.
Role: Backstage coordinator, database print out design, worksheet preparation, and junk mail visual translation.
October 2013
Futures Capsules – TEDActive
Futures Capsules is an interactive exhibition for envisioning possible futures at the 2014 TEDActive conference in Whistler, British Columbia. As part of the Lincoln Reimagine program, Future Capsules engaged with attendees to fill four time capsules, each depicting one of four paths into the future.
Time capsules normally represent the current state, but can they be useful for envisioning possible futures? The four time capsules were loaded with speculative physical artifacts informed by TED attendees’ research fields.
Participants channeled their thinking through the installation over the course of a week, producing objects that depict some facet of future life. The model made use of the four future paths proposed by Jim Dator in 1977 at the Institute for Alternative Futures Conference: ‘grow’, ‘collapse’, ‘discipline’ and ‘transform’.
Role: Planning, preparation, installation, and product visualization.
March 2014
For more about The Extrapolation Factory, click here.