fields

Data + Regen Futures

Do we have the data sets to move toward a Regenerative Future?

Using two events again to develop a space of enquiry, in particular about what are the data sets that we have, and what do we need to adjust our bearing toward a regenerative society.

Last week Dr Bree Trevena, Bonnie Shaw Raffe Brennan and I kicked off the ‘Refuge’ Hackathon during Melbourne Design Week “From parks to waterways, plazas to sporting fields, our civic infrastructures act as places of refuge and respite for both human and non-human residents alike. “Refuge” will explore the roles these infrastructures might play in creating more resilient cities and communities into the future..” with the question “What role can data play in creating more resilient places of urban refuge?”

With the help of Matt Duckham we identified over 40 data sets for Melbourne / Victoria and Australia: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1m02MPw3Wlf9NMM8Rsvn2tCLZo1G1uxRg3xkrPV-shRY/edit?usp=sharing

However, as participants began to introduce social, environmental and economic issues, we saw gaps opening up in the ‘representation of the city’ as data, and the very present challenges experienced as participants identified themselves within place and on country.

What became apparent was the likelihood that the data sets exist to sustain an existing economy, and likely enabling it. For example the datasets provide vital data for developers to speculate and plan toward new building projects. What emerged from conversations was: which datasets are missing that would become stepping stones toward a regenerative economy?

A week earlier, part of the Planetary Civics programme at RMIT College of Design and Social Context, Naomi Stead and Sarah Barns led a conversation between Liam Young and Alisa Andrasek. An aspect of the discussion was whether Young’s visions of a Planet City and Great Endeavour allow us to anticipate a likely future based on data sets that we have at the moment:

“something like Great Endeavour is formed from a series of reports, scientific articles embedded in academic journals that speak to the scale of carbon removal that’s required and the most viable solutions that you might have to do it at that scale.”

Can the technologies that support the ‘world building’ of Hollywood be used not only to construct either the extremes of utopian or dystopian futures, but perhaps actual ones? Young uses the term Data Dramatisation to open up the speculative gap between what data tells us now, and what it might lead to in a near future.

I’m never sure if speculative work allows us to ‘back cast’ with confidence in order to make meaningful changes in the present, but judging from the observations of the Hackathon’s participants, current data sets are missing significant sources and voices for organisations, governments and corporations to make decisions about how to adjust their models toward a regenerative society. 

Photography by Tilly Parsons