Prophecy Program

source: sitrakacouk

2013
The Prophecy Program is an exploration of the human capabilities in sensing future events, as well as an examination of the nature of the scientific experiment. This project has been created as part of the Media Design Practices summer research program, and took place within the wind tunnel of the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, California.

Following the publication of ‘Feeling the Future’ a paper by Daryl J. Bem, in Journal of Personality and Social Psychology in 2010, The Prophecy Program set out to design a series of experiments inspired by the experimental evidence for the existence of physiological precognition, depicted throughout the paper. And extended the research to a broader paranormal realm.

Professor Bem’s paper instigated a fair amount of media coverage, ranging from over enthusiastic blog posts describing fantastic applications, to more critical investigations looking at the unpublished failed replications. As Chris French points out, in an article published on the Guardian website, these papers were rejected by the journal responsible for publishing the controversial claim, as the editorial line does not publish replications.

As opposed to a scientific experiment, whereby the compiled data can be of critical importance, The Program is interested in the relationship between audience and science, vulgarisation and accurate measurements, emerging from the original claim and intention, and the creation of beliefs and/or scepticism.

The Program envisioned the aesthetic language of the experiment as the skeleton for beliefs. In the same manner that the United States and the Soviet Union initiated secret psi programs, during the cold war, based on fear and eventually irrational beliefs. Their competitiveness on psychic weaponry led to the creation of apparatus and protocols which in some way can be related to the existence and role of religious and/or superstitious devices.

The Program consists of three experiments organised around the monitoring apparatus: a precognition test-rig, a waiting tower for remote viewing, a bacterial drone and two purposely built chart recorders.
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source: sitrakacouk

I was born in Madagascar and grew up in Paris before moving to London in 2008. I have a mixed background in art and design; I hold a Bts in industrial design, a MA in graphic design & multimedia and graduated in 2010 from the Royal College of Art in Design Interactions.
I started freelancing in 2006 as a graphic and web designer then interaction designer before moving towards a speculative design approach.
I lived half a year in China in 2007, and worked as an Art Director for the StudioZero in Shanghai.
I also worked for Wieden and Kennedy as a researcher and creative technologist in their R & D Platform. Most of my work was dedicated to the exploration of new areas where the company resources and expertise could be used. As well as looking at ways of using technology and emerging technologies to create new experiences.
I’ve also co-founded a ‘speculative design’ collective with friends coming from computer science and architecture backgrounds: Good One.
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I have specialised in designing objects, artefacts and devices as a form of storytelling to question and excite. I usually use science as fuel to imagine new relationships between people and technology, whether it allows us to achieve something fantastic or perceive reality through a different prism.
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source: we-make-money-not-art

One of the experiments in the designers’ Prophecy Program project consists in perching an individual on an ultra-elevated chair where they will act as seismograph and predict earthquakes, exploring accuracy and specificity of psi and experience in landscape. A second one is an ‘autonomous biological drone’ which, inspired by bioenergetic capabilities of plants to sense humans intentions, would operate overhead monitoring human activity and emotions below. The last one is the working prototype of a ‘Pre-cognition test rig’ which acts as a big Russian roulette that fires at individuals while sensors pick up any body sign that they are indeed sensing the upcoming shoot.
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source: behancenet

设计师的Prophecy Program(预言计划)项目其中的一个实验是让一个人坐在超高温的椅子上，作为地震仪预测地震，用以探索超心理的精准性和特征性，以及地理经验。第二个实验是“自主生物无人驾驶机”，其灵感来自于植物感知人类意图的生物能，悬于头顶来监测下面人类的活动与情绪。最后一个实验是“预认知试验台”, 类似于俄罗斯轮盘赌，当感应器拾取任何确实感知到即将到来的射击的身体信号时，就会开火。
正如你可以猜到的那样，本集节目既不典型也不乏味。Sitraka 和 Andrew 的作品，可比看上去要天马行空多了。