Paper long abstract:

One particular anthropologically inspired approach to exploratory design seeks to create new design opportunities through small ethnographic experiments with everyday life situations. The immediate purpose of these experiments is to establish and explore a credible and meaningful practice around a particular idea in the environment and by the people it addresses, before the idea is fully developed.

My colleagues and I propose the theatrical notion of rehearsing the future to describe a playful mode of trying out how everyday life might play out differently in a way that is meaningful to all the involved participants, given the potential availability of alternative resources (for example new technologies, processes, or organizations).

From a position within this field of practice, I am concerned with concrete performances of the imaginary. In this paper I will reflect on what it implies to appropriate an ethnographic methodological heritage for this proactive orientation towards possible futures.