Kim Munro has written a short report on the screenwriting & filmmaking event I was just at in Adelaide! It gives you a glimpse of the experience and what I spoke about. 🙂
Report for The International Journal of Creative Media Research: https://ijcmr.online/2/announcement/view/6
#screenwriting #filmmaking #changedesign #emancipatorydesign
"Designing Equitable Worlds: Six Orientations to Evoke the Future "
It's great to see these different approaches listed. I haven't read the full paper yet, but so far I don't see "unlearning" in there (which, in my mind, includes decolonising). But the approaches are in direct relationship with the future, so I guess that would be why?
Matching these to the strategies I use in my games versus my design discourse, there are differences.
https://direct.mit.edu/desi/article/40/3/6/123232/Designing-Equitable-Worlds-Six-Orientations-to
I thoroughly enjoyed long-time colleague Anthony Mullins' talk on structures "Beyond the Hero's Journey."
Anthony extends his manual on the topic by describing various act structures suitable for film & TV (and games) and, as a bonus, shares some great exercises to teach screenwriting with them.
Link to Youtube video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7LQa4zz1lb4
Link to Anthony's manual: https://unsw.press/books/beyond-the-heros-journey/
#screenwriting #emancipatorydesign #writing #narrativedesign #changedesign
Personally, I design around epiphanies and cooperative learning.
Some good reworkings in this new paper: "A Transfiguration Paradigm for Quest Design" by Steven Harris & Nicholas Caldwell
"Based on a study of existing quest models, a dual quest framework of singular and synergy quests is proposed [...] which is now focused on the transfiguration of the player character."
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/15554120231170152
#gamedesign #questdesign #changedesign #transformativedesign #screenwriting #narrativedesign
Loving some of the key ideas introduced in this book on "Activist Affordances" by Arseli Dokumaci.
"Activist affordances are performative microacts/-arts through which disabled people enact and bring into being the worlds that are not already available to them, the worlds they need and wish to dwell in."
Book: https://read.dukeupress.edu/books/book/3207/Activist-AffordancesHow-Disabled-People-Improvise
Interview on the Sociology Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/in/podcast/arseli-dokumaci-activist-affordances-how-disabled-people/id425683368
"What Star Wars’ Andor can teach us about Revolutionary Leadership Development" by Cat Nadel
"For those of us devoting time and energy to these struggles, Andor contains lessons on how to build the leadership and collective power we need to challenge these systems.The central question driving the plot of Andor is “what motivates someone to join a rebellion and become a leader?"
#changedesign #narrativedesign
#screenwriting
#Leadership
#rebellion
Yay! I just finished revising another chapter in my book, and have sent it off to a beta-reader. This chapter challenges the social and narrative design default of "refusing the call." Since my book is about change, it's about refusing the call to change.
What are your expectations, hopes, ideas, and problems you may have regarding the notion of "refusing the call"? I find it helpful to know how other people feel about the idea. :)
Thank you!
Making changes so things stay the same (sigh).
"Following Avelino (2017) and Brisbois (2019), we define power shifts as follows: power shifts happen when the position of incumbent actors, or the current regime, is opposed by actors who challenge their power and eventually replace them." (various authors)
What about changing the desire to have power-over others, and the systems that uphold that thinking?
#ChangeDesign #Sustainability #Transformation #Power
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11625-022-01251-7
Over the last 2 decades, it has become increasingly evident that incremental adaptation to global environmental challenges—particularly climate change—no longer suffices. To make matters worse, systemic problems such as social inequity and unsustainable use of resources prove to be persistent. These challenges call for, such is the rationale, significant and radical systemic changes that challenge incumbent structures. Remarkably, scholarship on sustainability transformations has only engaged with the role of power dynamics and shifts in a limited fashion. This paper responds to a need for methods that support the creation of imaginative transformation pathways while attending to the roles that power shifts play in transformations. To do this, we extended the “Seeds of Good Anthropocenes” approach, incorporating questions derived from scholarship on power into the methodology. Our ‘Disruptive Seeds’ approach focuses on niche practices that actively challenge unsustainable incumbent actors and institutions. We tested this novel approach in a series of participatory pilot workshops. Generally, the approach shows great potential as it facilitates explicit discussion about the way power shifts may unfold in transformations. It is a strong example of the value of mixing disciplinary perspectives to create new forms of scenario thinking—following the call for more integrated work on anticipatory governance that combines futures thinking with social and political science research into governance and power. Specifically, the questions about power shifts in transformations used in this paper to adapt the Seeds approach can also be used to adapt other future methods that similarly lack a focus on power shifts—for instance, explorative scenarios, classic back-casting approaches, and simulation gaming.
In their book Systems Work of Social Change, Synthia Rayner and François Bonnici's have identified some significant aspects of change that resonates with my own. Importantly, they make "reconfiguring power" a key design principle.
In The Systems Work of Social Change, Cynthia Rayner and François Bonnici draw on two hundred years of history and a treasure trove of stories of committed social change-makers to uncover principles and practices for social change that radically depart from industrial approaches.
I’ve designed a serious game for a uni.
What I find interesting is that bc I’m using a prochange approach where I’m facilitating self-efficacy, optional thinking, prosocial relations, etc instead of imposing the change on them, there are more things to measure. I’m thinking the “Most Significant Change” technique could be a good approach.
Christy Dena
