2022-09-05

Last updated Feb 16, 2023

#thesis

• The proposed title of your paper/project
• The type of output: research, applied research, or creative project
• Your topic (This is not yet the thesis. The thesis is what you will claim about the topic.)
• In order to help you articulate your topic, answer the questions below as they apply to the type of project you plan to undertake:
  • What will your research or creative project be about?
  • What particular aspect of some field of experience will you be examining? 
  • What questions will you be addressing through your research? 
  • What objective do you wish to attain in undertaking your creative project? (If it applies.)
  • What will your final product be? (Be as concrete and specific as possible.)
• Conceptual framework: 
  • What disciplines are framing your project? (It has to be more than one in order to satisfy the interdisciplinarity requirement.)
  • Which concepts from each of these disciplines are pertinent to your research or creative project? (To articulate pertinence, ask yourself how the concept(s) relate to the phenomenon that you identified as your topic.)
• Method: What activities do you need to undertake in order to answer your research questions or produce your research project? (What exactly would you be doing when you embark on your research? Examples: Textual analysis? Interviews? Documenting events?)

• Title: “Ang Kinabukasan ng Pilipinas: Collaboratively Imagining Filipino Futurism”
• Topic
  • The Philippines is currently going through a crisis of imagination; most Pinoys are dreamless. Expounding on this, writer Boo Chanco states: “[Filipinos] don’t have a collective national dream…we don’t even have a sense of nationhood…we are very individualistic, focused on family and friends, and at best a collection of regional tribes pretending to be a nation.” Without imagination, there is no innovation; a country with citizens who can’t dream will forever be trapped in a status quo — one embedded with oppressive systems (e.g. capitalism, colonization, patriarchy). So how can we encourage Filipinos to dream big?
  • I’ve found inspiration in Afrofuturism, a cultural movement that envisions the future through the experience and perspective of African diasporic communities. Having been manifested in various mediums (i.e. literature, music, fashion, etc.), this movement has served as a framework for empowerment and liberation for Black people over the globe; imagining better — and therefore just — futures is what empowers them to resist the systems that oppress them until today (e.g. white supremacy). I believe Filipinos, with our centuries-long past of colonization, would benefit from this kind of ideology. What would Filipino Futurism look like? That’s what I aim to answer with this thesis.
  • The final product would be a virtual exhibition consisting of curated materials that represent Filipino Futurism: artworks, music, articles, etc. These materials must fall under set themes that define this aesthetic; in order to make them understandable to visitors, these themes would be expounded on through a series of long-form essays. Visitors can also contribute their own materials to this exhibition. Basically, this website would act like a glorified Pinterest/Are.na board. I also plan to have an Instagram for promoting this project.
  • I see this attempt to define a new aesthetic as an act of collective worldbuilding. I believe Filipinos are fully capable of this, having seen our inclination towards decentralized storytelling; just look at movements like ManilaEncounters, RP612fic, and heck, even the International State College of the Philippines. Why do we constantly seek worldbuilding? Perhaps because the society we live in is so broken; thus, we’re always trying to reimagine a better world. So why not work towards creating a “collective national dream”?
• Conceptual underpinnings:
  • INFORMATION DESIGN: aesthetics, UX/UI design,
  • COMPUTER SCIENCE: futurism (technological aspect), web development, database design

This workshop will harness the power of collaborative imagination in our feminist communities by envisioning a distant feminist future. World building is a design-thinking tool which is used often to create sci-fi, fiction, and fantasy narratives in film, video games, and literature.
First we use design thinking activities to facilitate creative visualization and begin to define the rules of our imagined world. Then we will use hands-on construction of various artifacts from our created world and the stories that have captivated our attention.
What do shoes look like in our feminist future? How about currency? The creation of tangible artifacts brings the details of our created world to life.