Beyond Computationality: Radical Play and Aesthetics in Future Compasses

The subreddit /r/FutureCompasses is an online community where users play with the notion of a computationality engineered futurity. Future compasses are intricate 4 × 4 grids that imagine different futures. Each grid offers sixteen different futuristic scenarios thematically structured around concepts such as ecology or technology. These compasses combine computationality with experimental aesthetics through play. As per Roger Callois, Pplay here crucially involves the creation of a new universal reality (Caillois 1961; Fink 1960). The authors of these compasses participate in the making of new social reality by applying a computational lens to the future and offering speculative scenarios about what the future could be. However, these scenarios do not reflect a realistic future for humanity. Instead, they subvert the idea of being able to calculate the future. Through creative play and experimental aesthetics, users who produce future compasses contrast computationality with human creativity. In this way, future compasses take their place in the artistic tradition of the New Aesthetic as defined by James Bridle (Bridle 2013). This article argues that future compasses contrast what can be technologically calculated and what should be creatively imagined.