Future Experiences
The Network for Organisms’ Adaptive Habituation (N.O.A.H) is a semi-satirical speculative organisation, responding to the breakdown of natural habitats worldwide. Reaching its peak in 2034, N.O.A.H set out to be a 21st century Noah’s Ark, providing augmentations for animals to survive in increasingly hostile environments. The network, composed of wealthy scientists, philanthropists and effective altruists, saw this as the next stage of evolution. The network is presented through a collection of artefacts that form a museum exhibit: the N.O.A.H brochure – a look into its operations (full pdf – https://pdfhost.io/v/lK9d09Fx7_NOAH_Booklet_V21), an original uniform worn by its founder Dr. M. Ron. Hubcap and a scale model of a polar bear fitted with N.O.A.H’s flagship augmentation – the PB-LSS (Polar Bear Life Support System).
Situated within the future retrospective exhibition, ‘This was the Future Once’ at the Museum of Good Intentions, N.O.A.H is designed to be the ultimate embodiment of a bandage for a broken late-capitalist planet. The project seeks to explore and represent the kind of thinking that will become more common as we try to innovate our way through a climate crisis, provoking reflection on the role of design and its proclivity for propping up failing structures. Obviously absurd, but worryingly believable – perhaps this is the future of life centred design.
