Part science part magic: Analysing the OWL outcomes

Art and Science, just like Science and Magic are seen as distinct practices, requiring distinct world views. In the OWL project we call on, cross-fertilise and blur boundaries between all three. The project is predicated on Clarke's third rule of technology prediction, that "any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic" (Clarke, 1984). From this standpoint we are developing rigourous processes to support magical thinking, with the aim of understanding how to support the conception and development of technologies that we can't yet imagine, to the point where they can be evaluated. We are approaching our problem from a number of perspectives, including the development and use of placebo objects and devices, probe-like enquiry through one on one interviews and workshops where we encourage people to make their own exploratory devices, and thereby extend and challenge the way we, as design researchers, are thinking about technology conception and design. We present here our burgeoning approach to analysing the OWL interview outcomes. New processes demand new techniques. We draw on well established methods and consider how they might be subverted to support our needs.