»Futures of Air« Prototype Collection

CLB Berlin Oct – Nov 2023

CollActive Materials & co-speculators Documentation of the prototypes produced in the »Futures of Air« workshop series

Futures of Air

Photos: © Michelle Mantel, SCIoI

Drawing on the theme »Futures of Air,« 62 collaborators from civil society and the fields of research and design gathered in three different co-speculation workshops in the spring of 2023. Together with the CollActive Materials project team and collaborators, invited to provide insights, participants explored their individual and shared questions about air.

Each participant contributed their own perspectives, topics, and ideas. The three one-day workshops focused on joint creation and co-speculation. Participants envisioned fourteen speculative scenarios and prototypes of possible futures that allow alternative narratives of environments, technologies, and practices relating to air to unfold: These included new rituals and forms of coexistence with other breathing beings, air as a medium of memory and hope, alternative visions of urban infrastructures and atmospheres – and also commercial marketing strategies for the precarious resource that is air.

The collaborative mode prompted discussions on an equal footing, allowing participants to imagine collective futures and give these a material basis by means of speculative design. This ultimately inspired the exhibits displayed in the exhibition »AIRBOUND«.