VITIDEN
– A ENERGY
FICTION
We must accept the present reality – only thereby do we have the possibility to understand it, relate to it to influence it and create culture that is a flexible tool for the transition.
This is the opening paragraph of "Vitiden - an energy fiction" 1 where the transition to a more sustainable society is explored through interacting text and image.
In the forward-looking and text-based manifesto, Vitiden is outlined as an answer to today's ecological and social challenges. The high pitch and ambitions of the manifesto are commented on by an image-based future archaeology, constructed by fictional fragments of the future. Inset images from the acceptera manifesto2, which is also paraphrased in the introductory paragraph of Vitiden, relates the energy fiction to the modernist societal development and the critique thereof. A generous body of annotations contributes with further perspectives.
The project is based on a literature review of climate communication, empirical studies (interviews, focus groups and design workshop), as well as a considerate amount of reference projects. Furthermore, the design artefact (manifesto and future archaeology) has been developed in an iterative process where also two graphic designers, Me and Gabriel Kanulf, as well as the illustrator Laurie Rollitt, have participated.
1) The term Vitiden is Swedish and can be translated to the 'we-age'. In contrast to other 'ages' such as the bronze age or the atom age, Vitiden is not a description of a historical era, but a suggested future, an age yet to come, distinguished by its emphasis on togetherness.
An energy fiction is a design fiction or essentially any image of the future dealing primarily with questions related to energy, in this case as an enabling and constraining factor for sociomaterial entanglements and practices to emerge and endure.
2) Asplund, G., Gahn, W., Markelius, S., Paulsson, G., Sundahl, E., Åhrén, U. 1980[1931] acceptera. Tiden förlag. Faksimil.
