PostGrowth Control Wars

The future is a space of political struggle that is defined by the worlding capacities (and limitations) of both humans and non-humans.

We do not shape the future itself,but we intervene in present constellations and thereby influence future developments,more or less indirectly.

Control Wars is a scenario-building method for co-designing futures through play, generative conflict and prototyping. Through evolving scenarios that intersect technology, politics, culture and governance, participants rehearse strategic and systems design.

Conceived as an adaptive tool, Control Wars has explored themes such as Data Commons, AI, Climate

Change, Space Exploration, and social change during COVID-19.

Post-Growth Control Wars is the last iteration of this research space. It is aimed at five objetives:

Observe social expectations in relation to the controversies surrounding degrowth and sustainability at the convergence of industry, governance, technology, and economy.

Stimulate social imagination through the collaborative production of sociotechnical scenarios framed by planetary

Challenge modern optimism based on the myth that techno-scientific progress can do it all—and the futures it produces.

Decolonize imaginaries captured by technocapitalist logics.

Rehearse transition strategies towards a post-growth society.

Post-Growth

Control Wars confronts

four different “gangs”:

How does it work?

How does it work?

➔ Four gangs ➔ Playing field

➔ Tactics Store (cards)

➔ Facilitators

➔ Narrator / joker

➔ From 2 hours to several days

Each team familiarizes itself with its vision. Once they have defined their objectives and their ideal scenario, they “read” the systems to build transition strategies.

Each group uses its cards to build a tactic, and thus control the following future horizons

These tactics are designed also through a material process. The object or performance will be presented in battle. Tactics are presented in a battle for a specific future horizon (between 5 and 120 years in the future)

The facilitator decides which tactics prevails over others. Based on that, a new emerging scenario is written and presented to the teams. Considering the new scenario, the teams design new tactics to conquer the next future horizon. This repeats between 3 and 8 times.

Outcomes

Build an archive of the post-growth imagination.

Create stories about post-growth transitions.

Observe the commonplaces of the post-growth imagination.

Create a catalogue of possible transitional tactics.

Re-enchant the discourse and potential practices around degrowth.