As a proof of concept of how arts and fiction can broaden the scope of "thinkable futures", project WORK+ has collaboratively gathered 150+ fictional and artistic “fragments” on the futures of work. These include science fiction, visual and performing arts, speculative design, video games, utopias and manifestos, performances, and so on. Based on this material, WORK+ has designed an open-source method to help groups and organizations kickstart collaborative thinking on the futures of work. The challenge: • Use fiction and arts as leverage to embrace change • Move away from conventional thinking on the future of work • Dare invent more diverse futures and project oneself in them This presentation presents the methodology, the content, and the takeaways of the first workshops.

1. “IMAGINIZING”
THE FUTURES
OF WORK,
TOGETHER
* Imaginize: To make something
imagined. To become imagined.
To make imaginable.
Urban dictionary

2. About Us
www.plurality-university.org

3. Catherine Dufour
Writer
ktioucha@yahoo.fr
https://kat.mecreant.org/
@twittcdufour

4. WORK+: A “Proof of Concept” Using Fiction
to Kickstart Futures-Oriented Processes
• How can arts and fiction help us imagine the
futures of work, and explore unusual
territories?
• In 2018, the WORK+ collaborative project has
collected more than 150 fictional
“Fragments” on the futures of work from
science-fiction, videogames, speculative
design, visual and performing arts, etc.
• Our intent was to use this material in order
to stimulate imaginations, open up new
perspectives, generate new “thinkable
futures” and help broaden the set of
alternatives for all stakeholders.
• What follows is an interim report on WORK+.
BE YOUR OWN BOSS…
AND YOUR OWN PRODUCT
“Jennifer Lyn Morone, Inc has advanced into the
inevitable next stage of Capitalism by becoming
an incorporated person. This model allows you to
turn your health, genetics, personality,
capabilities, experience, potential, virtues and
vices into profit. In this system You are the
founder, CEO, shareholder and product using your
own resources.”

5. Inspirations

6. Artistic/Fictional “Fragments”

7. Collaborative Collection of Fragments (150+)

8. A mapping of “tensions” Formal, rational
organizations
Ad hoc organisations
Reduction of the role
of human work
in life and society
Work central
to definition
of Self
Gig economy, startups,
benefit corporations,
multijobs…
Industry 4.0, smart,
A.I., robotics…
Blockchain, DAO,
flash organizations…
Rating, always on,
flexibility, holacracy,
projects,
intrapreneurship,
employability…
Capabilities ↔︎ Trade
Career ↔︎
Itinerary
Job ↔︎ Opus
Robitization ↔︎
Robotaddition
Burn-out ↔︎ Bore-out
Profit ↔︎
Impact
Status ↔︎
Slashing
Professional income
↔︎ Universal income
Work community
↔︎ Social network
Autonomy ↔︎
Subordination

9. “Our work will be more
than making wages—it
will be our art, our whole
life. We will give it to each
other, we will not buy it.
Also there should be no
signs of hierarchy. I don't
even believe in the leader
system we have now.”
KIM STANLEY ROBINSON, Red Mars, 1992
Using Fragments
• Select 40-50 Fragment that resonate with the
specific perimeter of the group’s questions about
the futures of work
• Ahead of time: Progressively expose participants
to unusual visions of the future of work
(10 fragments sent via email each week /
“Immersion” session)
• At the beginning of the workshop: An “exhibition”
to visit, discover, and discuss Fragments, so as to
create a productive level of unbalance
• During the Workshop: Fragments as “postcards”
of the future, to discuss and then use in producing
visions of really different futures.

10. The Futur.e.s Workshop
• Futur.e.s is “the largest festival in France
dedicated to digital innovation”
• 2 diverse groups of participants: Corporate
executives (HR / Innovation / Digital), Trade Union
representatives, Digital social innovators…
• The workshop mixed 3 inputs:
• “Futures issues” identified by participating
organizations
• Fragments
• 6 startups presented at Futur.e.s
• It was designed to product 2 types of outputs:
• “What Ifs?” (new questions, hypotheses,
perspectives)
• “Why Nots?” (actions that could be tried in
the short term)

11. The Futur.e.s Workshop: Outline
PREPARATION
Define the “foresight questions”.
Identify participants (diversity!!)
Select 50 relevant Fragments.
DISCOVERY OF THE FRAGMENTS
Participants discover the Fragments
(posters, cards on table, sound/video
sequences on tablets…)
Each participant elects 1-2 Fragments
and shares how they question their
current vision of Work.
VISIT OF THE FUTUR.E.S FESTIVAL
The group discovers 6 selected
startups within the Futur.e.s Festival.
MIXING
In subgroups of 2 :
• Each person chooses 1 Fragment +
1 startup and imagines a future
mixing the 2
• Then shares it with the other
person
SHARING
Participants share their work, locating
their vision on a scale between “What
if?” (new ideas) and “Why not?” (new
courses of action)
They reflect on the new questions,
insights, and possible directions that
the workshop have helped identify.
PREPARATION EXPLORATION QUESTIONNING
IN A FUTURE THAT LOOKS LIKE THIS…
(Based on a fictional Fragment)
… THE MOST INTERESTING, STIMULATING, DISRUPTIVE STARTUP IS:
BECAUSE:
It invents or reinvents: It transforms or reshapes:
It connects and mixes: It equips and enables:
WHAT WOULD THE MIX BETWEEN THIS FUTURE AND THIS
INNOVATIVE CONCEPT TRANSFORM IN OUR ORGANIZATION
(AND POSSIBLY BEYOND)?
(how does tomorrow differ from today?)

12. Some Insights from the Workshop
• Startups as a paradoxical inspiration for the
transformation of work
 If we want people to be entrepreneurs, we need
to treat them as such…
 If we want collaboration, we need to trust people
• Complex effects of / expectations towards
technology: How to reinvest the body, senses,
emotions, human relationships, into work?
 Technology an expression of (sometimes
perverse) management choices, rather than the
opposite…
• Lifelong learning, by whom? Machines, people,
organizations?
• A strong demand for “space-time”: free, useless,
meditative, reflexive time… Can A.I. help?

13. The Futur.e.s Workshop: Feedback
• The method made is very easy to engage
participants and trigger fluid discussions between
extremely diverse participants
• Fragments are powerful food for thought,
however they need time to discover, choose,
and connect to one another
• Visiting select startups was inspiring, however it
made it more difficult for participants to project
into very different futures, than just using
Fragments
• Participants loved the workshop but were
frustrated when it ended without a “Now What?”
• Need to reproduce the experience within firms or
existing collectives, with more skin in the game
WINFRIED BAUMANN, “Instant Housing H-Klasse, H3”,
2005

14. Towards an autonomous WORK+ Toolkit
• Designed towards corporations or other
professional groups and collectives
• Open-source
• Goal: to kickstart a collective thought process on
the futures of work
• Expected outcomes:
• To agree on why change is coming/necessary
(not necessarily on what it’ll be)
• To produce new words, new images about
what work could be like in the future,
incarnated in stories, artefacts, situations, etc.
• To broaden the set of “thinkable futures” and
help frame the next steps of collective
exploration, possibly using more classic
”futuring” methods
IT’S NO GAME, A MOVIE WHOSE SCENARIO
WAS WRITTEN BY AN A.I.
IT’S NO GAME, directed by Oscar Sharp, screenplay
by the “Benjamin” A.I. programmed by Ross Goodwin, 2017

15. Towards a WORK+ “Toolkit”: Typical Workshop Flow
PREPARATION
Define and challenge the Perimeter.
Select 40-50 relevant Fragments.
Identify participants (diversity!!)
Choose dates/places (2x3 hrs)
IMMERSION: PRIOR EXPOSURE TO
FRAGMENTS
Email 15 Fragments to participants.
Gather participants (physically or
virtually) to take time to discover the
fragments and freely discuss them.
EXHIBITION VISIT
Participants discover the Fragments
(posters, cards on table, sound/video
sequences on tablets…)
Each participant elects 1-2 Fragments
and shares how they question their
current vision of Work.
« TRIGGERS OF CHANGE »
The group explores the (internal and
external) factors that make the futures
of Work different from its present.
It ranks the most significant factors.
CHOICE OF « FRAGMENTS » AS
MATERIALS TO INVENT FUTURES
In subgroups of 3-4 :
• Each person chooses 1 Fragment
and randomly draw another
• Participants discuss what their
fragments challenge, open…
INVENTION
Using all their Fragments, subgroups
invent future work situations, places,
tools, organisations…
Subgroups switch. The new subgroups
tell the story of what had to
happen/to be done to move from
today to these futures.
NOW WHAT?
Subgroups share their stories.
The whole group reformulates its
initial questions and identifies new
questions.
It identifies and prioritizes directions to
explore in coming workshops.
PREPARATION EXPLORATION [3hrs] EXPANSION [3hrs]

16. More Insights Derived from WORK+
• Inequalities and climate change are as important
as A.I. in determining the future of work.
• The robotization of work precedes robots.
• A.I.s have no agenda, however, corporations
investing in A.I.s do: And this agenda is to hollow
organizations out of people, at least as
autonomous, sense-making, sense-seeking and
prone-to-argue entities.
• Depending on its agenda, the “cyborgization” of
humans and of work could be liberating or deeply
alienating.
• We need to deeply revisit the
links between work, craft,
knowledge, income, status,
activity, self-realization, time,
space, production, etc.
“The CHI community has taken on the specific burden of
responsibility to design technology such that it is usable,
accessible, effective, fun and ubiquitous. On the face of things,
the results of these efforts seem to make people’s lives easier,
more enjoyable, better informed, healthier and more
sustainable. However, the reality is that this could not be
further from the truth.
“The truth is this: that we, as robots from the future, have
watched over the eager, yet misguided, work of the CHI
community and occasionally steered it towards its true goal: the
complete enslavement of humankind by its evil robot masters.
(…)
“Indeed, significant effort was expended in developing systems
that either directly or surreptitiously increased the workload of
humans, freeing up machines to engage in more fulfilling
pursuits. The majority of 21st century HCI research was for the
purposes of increasing the reliance of humans on, and affection
for, machines.
https://frama.link/boulofictions (French)

17. “IMAGINIZING”
THE FUTURES
OF WORK,
TOGETHER
Daniel Kaplan
Plurality University
dkaplan@plurality-university.org
www.plurality-university.org
@PluralityU
WORK+ material (in French) available here:
www.plurality-university.org/workplus/
Catherine Dufour
Writer
ktioucha@yahoo.fr
https://kat.mecreant.org/
@twittcdufour