“What would you do if you had no fear?” asks the speculative service ‘The Black Hole Said.’ The service allows clients to time travel and change their past, present and future situations to transform themselves and their realities. On the other side of the Black Hole one will live in a fear-free environment.
[01] The Black Hole Said.
The Black Hole Said is a speculative service between galaxies. In the Black Hole, you will change your past, present and the future situation. The service will transform you and your reality. On the other side of the Black Hole you will live in a totally fear-free environment. A session at The Black Hole Said begins with a central question: “What would you do if you had no fear?”
We were traveling among galaxies as we usually do in our daily lives. We have been trained to see things beyond their pure physical existence. In-between the Outer Space and the Earth, we found the Black Hole. The Black Hole asked us: What would you do if you had no fear?
Fear is but the other side of one dimension that carefully hides the other one: desire. We have nothing but uncertainties. Our everyday life, as we know it, has been built in order to create security – rules that make us feel comfortable but give us directions and structure. We think that we know what is right or wrong simply because we follow the rules without questioning. We are used to living in the Comfort Zone we have created.
From time to time we feel the tension of fear and desire that pushes us to rethink the meaning and function of the Comfort Zone. This is the moment when we would like to try something new, to say something unexpected, to change or to act differently. But, instead of indulging the tension, we keep on living in the comfort zone and repeat to follow the same fear-structures than before.
By acknowledging this, we decided to jump together into the Black Hole with our fears, and to travel through the Event Horizon that translates fear into desire. Pushing ourselves to liberate and overcome our fears allows us to create and enter a new dimension where we can think and act fear-free.__
[VIDEO] The Black Hole Said (2016) [00:02:15] Images ESA / NASA, NASA, Wikipedia, Remarkable Science, Blackhole Basics, Episode 1.
![[06] Mask, grid. Image Raphael Volkmer.](http://localhost:3000/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/07_TheBlackHole_Mask-02_Image_Raphael-Volkmer_WEB_GB.jpg)
[06] Image Raphael Volkmer.
‘The Black Hole Said’ has been developed between Taipei in Taiwan, Eindhoven in the Netherlands, Bologna and Bolzano in Italy, and Guadalajara in Mexico.
Silvia Neretti is a social designer also known as ‘The Unhappiness Repairer.’ She is fascinated about how artefacts affect human behaviour. She challenges herself in designing for facing situations that can be described with words such as crisis, challenge, change, happiness, fear, paradoxes, habits, misbehaviour, mistake, unexpected, alchemy and utopia. Neretti holds a Master of Design degree in Social Design from Design Academy Eindhoven.
Website
Wei Lun Wang is a freelance designer with background in social and product design. He works on social design, public workshops, graphics and illustrations. Wang is specifically fascinated about connections between design, daily human behaviour, identity, a human in society and the human body, which he often combines with design fiction and speculative futures. He enjoys life with ironic and absurd illustrations, provocative design interventions, and visual communication. Wang is currently based between Taiwan and the Netherlands.
Website
Aldo Cancino is a designer with a Master of Design in Social Design from Design Academy Eindhoven, The Netherlands. He lives and works in Guadalajara, Mexico.
Raphael Volkmer is a freelancing design generalist and visual communicator with a particular interest in design processes and (social) relations. He explores topics related to policy design, social change and activism as well as collaborative and inclusive business developments. He studied communication and product design at the Free University of Bolzano in Italy, and at the Bezalel Academy of Design and Arts in Jerusalem, Israel. Volkmer is now based between Bolzano and Munich, Germany.
Website
‘Memedom of Expression’ explores the potential of Internet memes as digital folklore. It speculates about memes as the new arena of bottom-up expression, and suggests that they are an element that is already building a European social memory. Therefore, memes are important culture to be archived.
“What would you do if you had no fear?” asks the speculative service ‘The Black Hole Said.’ The service allows clients to time travel and change their past, present and future situations to transform themselves and their realities. On the other side of the Black Hole one will live in a fear-free environment.
Flight, fight or freeze responses alert us to danger. Aya Bentur and Bili Regev create an abstraction of these gestures by removing them from their natural context, and placing them in a dance accompanied by upbeat music. The absurdity of dancing without fear, yet with the gestures of fear, facilitates an active control over physical and mental reactions.
The most significant actions of early societies were performed and then literally translated as symbols onto objects of daily or ritual use, creating both an ephemeral and lasting narrative. These symbols and performed actions were part of a belief system that brought joy and hope to often perilous situations. Jessica Smarsch explores the negotiation between performance and symbolism from a historical and contemporary perspective.
In Italy, more than half of the youth cannot envision a future. In a crisis of imagination, the very idea of a possibility is disappearing from the generation of teenagers. As a specialist of imagination, a designer can ignite a dialogue about how to subvert the way we learn and perceive reality.
‘Figli del Vesuvio’ reflects lightheartedness in youth as a spontaneous and natural reaction towards uncertainty of the future. In five short, introspective chapters, Corradino Garofalo analyzes social and cultural contexts of football through memories of social conditions that deeply influenced his vision of society.
Both abstract fear and hope are illusions; projections of the mind into a possible different tomorrow. Hope, pessimism and joy can be observed as potential contexts to relieve fear caused by abstract threats. What should design aim for – oblivion, counter-realism, or religion?
The Dots analyses social uprisings, collective behaviour and individual pull through a series of illustrations. It is a closed narration and a metaphor to create a bridge to simplify the complexity of social behaviour.
![Image [02] Mask, lion. Image Wei Lun Wang.](https://www.fictional-journal.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/06_TheBlackHole-Mask-01_Image_Wwi-Lun-Wang_WEB_GB-1280x854.jpg)
