The Future of Money
Lead by: Malé Luján Escalante, in collaboration with Supra Systems Studio and UAL:LCC Design School
The Future of Money Award has run for over a decade, exploring different facets of design, money, and speculative thinking. In 2022, it was hosted by Supra Systems Studio, in collaboration with the Design School at London College of Communication, University of the Arts London.
Every week seems to bring a new plan to reinvent money. These plans are hyped as revolutionary: they promise to liberate us from inequality, disrupt global finance, and bring down outdated institutions. These new monetary systems are designed from the ground up with fresh inbuilt logics to support their imagined use. Seductively shiny, they ask us not to look too closely at what their long-term implications are.
But the existing world of money isn’t going anywhere. State currency is still real. Bitcoin is still valued in US dollars, and folding paper cash still exists. Money is a public infrastructure and common language – it only has value because we have a shared sense of its meaning. If we want to change the world, we must start with what’s here right now, and think about how the system really works.
Instead of solving it by stacking new breakage on old, can creative practice challenge how existing financial systems work?
The Future of Money design competition invited people to use future-oriented creative methods and create a project which makes a change to an existing financial system, considering how this system operates, and why, and designing a modification to the system, its’ communication, or how it is distributed.
Future of Money Award Winners 2022
Memoirs to Keep
Yashwanthi Balamurugan Sumithra, Xi Zhang, Syeda Madiha Hussain, & Yini Zheng, MA Service Design, UAL:LCC
Failed Economies
Angela Rodríguez, Andrea Miranda, María Gabriela Sulbarán, Karl Gavidia, Jeiver Gavidia, Graphic Design, Universidad de los Andes, Venezuela.
Financial Transaction Markup Language
Martin Disley, Chris Elsden, Chris Speed, Institute for Design Informatics, University of Edinburgh
Fanoo Child Banking
Carmen Diaz, Zhiyu Lin, David Povilaika, & Julia Yu , BA (Hons)Design Management, UAL:LCC
Pay Delay
Omair Malik BA (Hons) User Experience, UAL:LCC.
Green Uni
Pam Chen, BA (Hons) Design for Art Direction, UAL:LCC
CBDCS for SDGS
Glenn Sæstad, MA Strategic Design, Oslo School of Architecture and Design
___, in Excess
Astrid Chung and Benedetta Scollo, BA (Hons) Design for Art Direction, UAL: LCC and Aldo Heubel, BA (Hons) Crossmedia Design at ArtEZ University of the Arts
Hidden Value in the Information Age
Haipeng Yan, Hanli Zhang, MA Data Visualization, UAL:LCC and MsC Data Science & AI for Creative Industry, UAL:CCI
Public Program
To complement the competition, we have curated a public online program of lectures and creative futures workshops,. Videos for the lectures are available in the links below. Attending the public program is not a requirement for submission, but it will help to situate your work within the design discussions.
If you’ve participated in the program, we’d love to hear your feedback about it here.
‘Financial Instruments’ - DMSTFCTN. In this lecture, DMSTFCTN will explore opaque financial practices and discuss their evolving artistic approaches to money and its systems. Video available here.
‘Selling Stories’ - Oliver Smith (DMSTFCTN) and Marion Lagedamont (UAL) This workshop explores the use of storytelling as a way to reframe our approaches to the future of money, revealing its infrastructures and hidden systems.
‘Counting Things That Money Doesn’t Count’ – Diana Finch, Bristol Pound, in conversation with Dr. Nigel Dodd (LSE) and Charlie Waterhouse (Extinction Rebellion) A conversation exploring the history and development of Bristol Pound and the role of communities in shaping the future of money. Video available here.
‘Dancing About Money’ - Alaistair Steele (UAL) and Dr. John Fass (UAL) What are the opportunities and pit-falls, for people and planet, of current and imminent changes in the forms money takes?
‘Participatory Futures’ – Laurie Smith, Head of Foresight Research (NESTA). As the world struggles with increased complexity and uncertainty, this lecture explores how NESTA uses contemporary methods which can allow us to collectively imagine alternative, democratic and inclusive futures. Video available here.
‘Money for Mars’ – Scott Smith (Changeist) & John Willshire (Smithery) Humans are on the edge of living in space full-time, but we have little recent concrete speculation about the new financial instruments and products that may emerge, especially considering how time, connection and needs change radically off-Earth. This workshop explores how to develop speculative financial products for New Space economies.
‘Indigenous Futures’ – Felipe Viveros This lecture will explore some of the key ideas and guiding principles behind global projects exploring new economic paradigms, from UBI to gross national happiness in Bhutan, presenting a general overview of how these new policies are working on the ground. Video available here.
‘Failed Economies’ – University of Andes ULA & IsITEthical? Exchange This workshop explores the realities of being a creative in a country where money has failed.
‘Reimagining the purpose of tax for a climate and biological emergency’ – Becky Miller This lecture introducing a speculative tax system in order to investigate the use of design artefacts in facilitating conversations with financial and climate futures. Video available here.
“When Money Talks Back” - Ruben Pater (Untold Stories) This workshop explores of the power dynamics behind the visual representations of money in many of its forms, and an invitation to use graphic design to open a line of communication allowing these representations of money to “talk back”.
