6. Design 1: Cult

Task: Create a concept based on the research undertaken previously.

Methods: Prototyping, brainstorming, bodystorming, black out poetry, timelapse, videoing

Team: Tanya Singh, Zuzana Galova, Roshni Suri

Timeframe: 9th October - 20th October

Cult concept

We came up with the idea of a cult centred around money, created around an obsession with financial goals. The purpose of this group would be to “help” you achieve them by taking your savings and giving you a ‘buddy’ to support your decision-making - similar to Alcoholics Anonymous. However, using cult ideology, once you had joined, you were financially tied in and couldn't escape.

Brainstorming around the cult idea. Images by author and Roshni Suri

We created a few touch-points, such as the initiation ceremony, which would create intimacy between you and your 'buddy' giving significance and tangible form to the digital acts you declared you would undertake.

Initiation ceremony. Writing, signing and witnessing the declaration. Images by author and Roshni Suri

Part of our process included questioning ourselves in the manner the tutors would, asking the questions to know if we could justify the answers. In preparation for speaking with them, we produced a 5-minute presentation to outline our idea.

A portion of the presentation outlining the idea. Images from collaborative presentation slides.

Our feedback at this point was to look at cult mechanisms and refrain from using the term ‘cult’ we could find other titles to work under.

I reviewed papers from Almendros et. al. (2007) and Rousselet et. al. (2017), who interviewed and analysed why people joined and remained inside a cult. We found that these groups often had similar ideals to those interested in joining and would look entirely normal from the outside. Once in, a mixture of praise and abuse would damage a participant’s confidence in leaving, unsure of the world outside the cult. The insights were valuable to help shape what behaviours we would be trying to design for and actions to build in.

With a design in hand, we were due to begin the design of the creative pieces that went within the ‘scheme’, however members of the group had come together with an alternative idea for us to review before progressing.

Escape the matrix

Our next set of ideating brought the concept that the world is already a money cult, and while we can't change it, we could focus on making a single person’s escape from the matrix.

Thinking creatively about low-budget and simple but meaningful ideas, we came across craftivism. A beautiful and robust mechanism for creatively sending a message about your issue, the examples we found gave us the inspiration to employ a range of methods.

A selection of craftivism activities. Images by author.

We took each piece of activism, created a narrative, and then filmed it to showcase our steps towards our final outcome.

Video collation of escaping the matrix. Assembled by author.

Feedback

Upon presenting our film, and the physical items we’d made to go in it, we encountered a surprising amount of questions.

• What is the consequence of these interventions? Need to compare it with something to make sense

• How does it work? What interventions can you take?

• We are inbetween worlds - Not a solution, not a cult, not speculative - how to view this

• Might not feel like we’re saying much if its small things with just one person

• Take a position within the framework, the capitalist system, what does that mean?

• Explain the narrative:

• We are trying to do too much / haven’t refined this enough

• What are we going to make? What is the final design outcomes

We’d stumbled across something we’d all been passionate about, we had made things, had a narrative and a vision for the outcome. Therefore, hearing a significant amount of feedback was challenging to stay motivated. Not to say that the feedback was incorrect: we did have too many answers as to WHY we were doing this, and whilst our small and beautiful revolution felt powerful to us, would it really be looked upon like that by others?

The idea was parked in favour of something more clearly understood and agreed upon by the group.

Given we had spent so much time on this idea, we had projected into the future how we would continue working, which included:

• Craftivism (mini protest embroidery, bunting, fortune cookies)

• Storytelling + narrative development

• Inspiration from Greta Thunberg's climate change protest/movement

• Hold a workshop to make more stuff together

• Design a final artefact on mass?

References

Almendros, C., Carrobles, J., & Carballeira, A.,. (2007). Former members' perceptions of cult involvement. Cultic Studies Review, 6(1), 1-20.. Cultic Studies Review. 6. 1-20.

Rousselet, M., Duretete, O., Hardouin, J.B. and Grall-Bronnec, M. (2017) 'Cult membership: What factors contribute to joining or leaving?', Psychiatry research, 257, pp. 27-33. doi: 10.1016/j.psychres.2017.07.018.