Host Your Own What the Future Wants

What the Future Wants is an interactive youth focused exhibition that presents different perspectives on technology from the personal, to the political, to the planetary. How does technology impact our attention, our data, our rights, our societies and our lived environments? This interactive exhibition is an opportunity for young people to pause and reflect on what it means to grow up in a digital world, to ask critical questions of technology, to identify what they want to protect and what they want to change in their digital future.

Co-developed alongside 200 young people between the ages of 13 and 18, What the Future Wants explores key questions at the core of young people’s digital experience - what is it like to grow up in a digital world? How does it impact you? And in your digital future, what would you like to change and what would you like to protect?

Who is this exhibition for?

The exhibition is designed for young people between the ages of 13-18. It can be used in schools, libraries, public spaces, museums, festivals and anywhere where there is an opportunity for learning and interaction. It can be hosted by a group e.g. a class, or by individuals.

What’s in ‘What the Future Wants’?

The exhibition is a mix of educational posters and interactive activities:

Posters

1. Introduction - Wall text to explain the exhibition and invite visitors into the space.
2. How Your Phone Is Devious By Design - A poster about the features of apps and phones that are designed to grab our attention, manipulate our behaviour or deceive us.
3. The Real Life of Your Selfie - A poster explaining how biometric and facial recognition works and where it appears in our daily lives.
4. Out of Hand - A poster examining the social and environmental impact of producing smartphones from the mining and extracting raw materials to the disposal of electronics.
5. Google Society - A poster explaining the scale and wealth of Google and other big tech companies.

Activities

Hello, Friend - An interactive activity inviting visitors to characterise their phone’s behaviour by drawing or writing their own mini cartoon.

Let’s Face It - A two part activity:

1. a dot-to-dot to create a faceprint and
2. a quiz about facial recognition and biometric technology.

Handy? - An activity to explore society’s increasing dependency on smartphones and digital technologies.

Don’t Be Evil - An activity asking visitors to reflect on Google’s motto, ultimately asking the question: what does an ‘evil’ company, and a company ‘doing the right thing’, look like?

Bubble Quotes - A set of quotes from WTFW contributors; these should be hung up around the exhibit. Also included are blank bubbles for visitors to fill in; these can be left on the activity table.

What do you need?

Materials

• Printer (capable of printing A6, A4 and A3)
• Scissors x 2
• Masking tape
• Wall space (see below)

Space

The space needed is between 6-8 meters of wall, depending on what you have available.

• The most compact set up is approximately 6 meters of wall. The recommended, more spacious, set up option uses approximately 7.5 meters of wall.
• The wall used can either be permanent or installed e.g. with use of panels.
• An activity table (around 90 x 180 cm)

People

• Minimum of two people needed for set up.
• Group set up e.g. As part of a class: distribute the tasks between small groups e.g. One group to cut the circles, one group to stick the objects on the wall.

Set-up Time

• Time: Takes between 1-2 hours to set up the entire exhibition including printing, cutting and hanging, depending on group size.

How to Set-Up: A Step by Step Guide

If you are interested in hosting a What the Future Wants exhibition, please get in touch with us at youth@tacticaltech.org, and check out our Set-Up Manual for more information. So far, What the Future Wants is available in Albanian, Czech, Dutch, English, French, Georgian, German, Hindi, Italian, Macedonian, Portuguese, Romanian, Slovenian, Spanish and Swedish. More languages coming soon.