Beyond Barcode (BARCODE) er et utstillingsprosjekt organisert av CoFUTURES’ forskningsgruppe og Interkulturelt Museum i Oslo. Hovedformålet til prosjektet er utstillingen BEYOND, som har som mål å vise frem resultatene og innovasjonene til det ERC-finansierte forskningsprosjektet CoFUTURES: Pathways to Possible Presents og tilknyttedde prosjekter.. BEYOND består av et sett med prototyper av ulike fremtider, laget på tvers av medier og skapt i samarbeid med kunstnere, forfattere, designere, og spillutviklere, for å nevne noen. Det andre formålet med prosjektet er å bruke utstillingen til å skape et program med forskjellige aktiviteter. Prosjektet finner sin relevans langs tre ulike akser: (a) Utvidelsen av CoFutures Literacy, (b) Spredningen og økningen av Fremtider og Fremtidskunnskap, og, (c) Globale og lokale utfordringer og norske fremtider. BEYOND baserer seg på forskningsfunn og innovasjoner fra forskningsgruppa bak CoFUTURES og deres samarbeidspartnere fra Europa, USA, Afrika, og Asia. BEYOND kombinerer forskningsfunn om hvordan lokale innbyggere i Oslo forutser og forestiller seg fremtiden, og setter disse sammen med globale forestillinger fra forfattere og kunstnere tilknyttet CoFUTURES. Det ERC-finansierte prosjektet jobber for å skape påvirkning i tre ulike dimensjoner: (1) å bringe fremtidstenkning og effekten av denne til et større publikum, (2) å undervise i metodene som underbygger Futures Literacy (fremtidslære) og CoFutures Literacy, og, (3) å fremme og skape bevissthet omkring mangfoldet i tenkning om fremtiden og dens effekt både på individuelle liv samt hvordan den påvirker samfunn på regionalt, nasjonalt, og planetarisk nivå.
The FORSTERK Grant was used to develop the exhibition "Beyond Barcode: Experiments in Radical Futures," currently exhibited at the Oslo Museum: Interkulturelt Museum (Tøyenbekken 5, Oslo). We conducted numerous workshops with the Oslo community to develop the 7 visual scenarios in the exhibition, the soundtrack (8th scenario) and the gamification (9th scenario). The financing was used primarily to develop the scenarios and to pay the workshop participants, artists, and costs for the exhibition materials. The exhibition was successfully executed and opened with the first scenarios on March 30, 2023, additional scenarios are added periodically, and additional closing events (workshops and lectures) were conducted in May and July. The exhibition website (https://conference.cofutures.org) showcases all the different scenarios developed in the exhibition, and provides additional details about the entire exhibition project and its methodology.
The exhibition has been made part of the Oslo Jubileum celebrations, so it will be open at the museum until December 2024.
The exhibition was also featured in the podcast "Spreng Grensene!" organized by Norges museumsforbund. An additional policy oriented impact article was presented by curators Bodhisattva Chattopadhyay and Bergsveinn Thorsson in Forskningspolitikk (1/2024). Both are available open access.
CoFutures takes as its main methodological inspiration futures literacy. Futures literacy is recognized by the UN as a key skill of our time, relevant for all aspects of our life. It involves training people in their ability to be aware of, recognize, and deal with problems in long, medium, and short term futures. There is a critical gap in how short term thinking (politics) and long term strategic thinking (scenario and policy) can be brought together in the public space of engagement in order to develop sustainable futures. CoFutures addresses this gap by developing and creating methodologies that hybridize and advance knowledge from science and technology studies and policy, futures studies, and speculative future fiction. We call this cofutures literacy.
The exhibition project BEYOND BARCODE (BEYOND) will promote cofutures literacy for different stakeholders: academia, general public, as well as policy makers and public and private organizations. BEYOND and its content, as well as the different public events, will radically expand the impact of the project in Norway, and also help export our research to international communities.
We will prototype different alternative futures, in association with different communities in Oslo, artists, fiction writers, designers, games developers, and changemakers. These prototypes will serve as the core component of the exhibition. We will also have associated events including workshops, lectures, and a Live Action Role Playing Game (LARP).
BEYOND serves the ERC project's goal of exploring alternative visions of innovation, non-traditional visions of futures, and questions the dominance of specific future visions by presenting alternatives on an equal playing field. BEYOND will display prototype futures under the themes: Diversity and Demographic Change, Culture and Social Life, Infrastructure and Governance, Climate and the Environment.