Future Thinking? Try a dynamic peek into the past

In the age of the intangible, the inter-connected and the ubiquitous; in an era in which you can pre- tend to be social without even leaving from the- couch, try discovering the power (and pleasure) of something new. Find yourself in real space. Make things work with your hands. Experience a world of real people. Today’s future is soon due to be tomorrow’s past, so how can we combine future thinking with thinking of the past? The technology we have today allows amazing things, getting so transparent that we can seamlessly embed it into the physical world. This allows to design artifacts that blend the two words offering wide, satisfac- tory and enriching experiences. Actually, much of the ‘something else’ we can achieve by doing so has much to learn from some very good tricks of the past. Ultimately, as long as the game works, and we are able to find ways to engage the public and make them think, does it really matter if the technology at hand is new, old, future or past? This line of thinking is becoming more and more central in our research and design work inthe area of exhibit design, in which we are increasingly in- trigued by the idea of orchestrating installations capable of blending the symbolic power of space, interactivity and visual communication, to pro- duce new (or very old?) experiences of communication.