Napkin Futures: Fragments of Future Worlds

Every day archaeologists dig up fragments of past worlds and cultures. Through these they try to construct a bigger picture of life in times bygone. The incompleteness of their findings raises questions and catalyses hypotheses. The fragments project the beholder beyond the present timeframe and engage him/her in active reflection on the bigger picture potentially uniting or complementing the fragments in another timeframe. What if we could create a similar context of engagement around life in the future? In 'napkin futures', micro-narratives sketched on paper napkins appear like excerpts from stories and happenings in the future. As if ripped from their broader context, each fragment invites to be unravelled into a bigger narrative. Both ultra-compact forms of design fiction and instruments of 'preflection', 'napkin futures' experiment with how a narrative fragment can be a powerful 'agent évocateur' and catalyst for debate with respect to futures.