# What I Can Do for the Future: On the Social Fes® Project, "From Raising Awareness of Issues to Experiencing Hope"

Since 2016, I have been working on the "Social Fes®" project, a festival-making initiative that plans and produces festivals depicting the world after each of the SDGs goals has been achieved. I am writing this article now to properly organize and document the full scope of the project.

This is what I can do #ForTheFuture.

By reading this article, you will gain the following:

・Understand what Social Fes® is
・Understand what a festival is
・Learn a new methodology for expanding the SDGs
・Find inspiration that may serve as seeds for new projects

First, there is a portfolio movie that summarizes some of the Social Fes® events held so far, so I hope you can get a sense of it through that.

Also, for those who are busy, this interview video explains things in quite a bit of detail, so please take a look.

Let's begin.

-What is Social Fes? Part 1-

First, let's summarize it in a diagram.

I don't think I need to go into detail about the SDGs, so I will skip that, but each of the 17 SDGs goals has about 10 more detailed targets.
Social Fes is a project that selects one specific issue from those targets, imagines the world after that issue has been resolved together with stakeholders actually working on the issue and interested individuals gathered through public recruitment, and expresses that world as a festival in the present day.

We have already created eight Social Fes events in this way.

Social Fes is defined according to the three core principles of the SDGs: "Universal," "Indivisible," and "Transformative."

Definition of Social Fes

Projects that achieve all of these elements are called Social Fes.

How to Produce a Social Fes

Social Fes is planned and produced mainly through the following process.

In the above, I am using a project called "Mud Land Fest," which was actually produced as a world after SDGs 12.3, as an example.

① Research and listen to real [present] issues
② Imagine what kind of world it will be after overcoming those issues [future]
③ Express the imagined future as a festival that can be experienced [present]

By going back and forth between the present and the future like this, we create crossover fiction within an entertainment experience.

Anthony Dunne and Fiona Raby, founders of speculative design, a design method for questioning, said the following:

Social Fes can be called an entertainment version of speculative design, and it resonates with the orientation mentioned above.

The Role of Social Fes

Unlike social design, Social Fes does not create steps for transformation toward a clear goal, but rather aims to create opportunities for imagining/creating the future as a physical sensation.

Rather than growing fruit, its role is to till the soil.
This is because the crops of civilization, such as the economy and politics, are born from the soil of imagination. The Social Fes project cultivates the cultural creation of speculative entertainment and looks toward a resilient future where suspicion and compassion coexist.

It may look like it is raising awareness of SDGs issues, but that is not the case at all. Rather than asserting what is right, we question what is right; instead of relying on textbooks or what important people say, we try to imagine the future with our own heads, feel the future with our own bodies, and create a world we can truly believe in from the bottom of our hearts—we are trying to till that kind of soil. I feel that this is the first thing necessary to make this country's democracy function properly.

Basically, all issues are nothing more than "perspectives" on issues. If no one observes them as issues, they disappear. Conversely, even if an issue is resolved in terms of the SDGs, as long as someone continues to think of it as an issue, it will persist. In many cases, solving one problem leads to the creation of another.

I am not saying that solving problems is meaningless; I believe that the process of thinking about each issue with one's own mind, coming up with one's own answer, and solving it is important for steering civilization in a better direction while avoiding unnecessary conflict.

To that end, Social Fes uses the culture of the "festival," where everyone can freely decide their own behavior within a framework of free sensibility. Why a festival? I will explain this in the next chapter, but for now, I have summarized the role of Social Fes below.

What is a Festival?

In a broad sense, dictionaries define a festival as a "secular event," but here, we treat a festival as a music festival. Why is music necessary, and why must it be a festival? The reason goes back to the era when music festivals were first created in the world.

The ancestor of the modern festival is the "Glastonbury Festival" held in the UK in 1970. It is one of the largest festivals in the world, still held annually. Two years prior to this, "Earthrise," considered the "most influential environmental photograph in history", taken by Apollo 8, circulated around the world.

Until then, the Earth was thought to be a vast and unshakable land, but the Earth seen in this photo was small, fragile, and beautiful, and it was something finite that we must protect. It is said that a major shift in human consciousness occurred. The following year, the first large-scale environmental movement, "Earth Day", was born, and a phenomenon occurred that became the prototype for what would later become festival culture, the "Woodstock Festival". The "Glastonbury Festival" was the intentional organization of this, rather than just a phenomenon.

During the era of the Glastonbury Festival, punks who called themselves "New Age Travelers"—in the sense of a new generation of hippies with ideas of harmony with nature—created a culture that became known as "rave culture." Instead of simply rebelling against the establishment and running wild, they used the term "green future" to express a future of coexistence with the Earth, asking, "So, what kind of society are we going to build from here?" Long before the SDGs were born, in the 80s, there were various stages, such as solar cinemas using solar power and DJ booths using bicycle power.

The concept of Social Fes® of "experiencing hope rather than raising awareness of issues" is actually just an attempt to revive the origins of the festival.

Modern Japanese festivals have blended into general society to the point of being summer leisure activities or corporate showcases, but the Gypsy Avalon stage at Fuji Rock originated from the Avalon Hill on the farm where the Glastonbury Festival is held, and it has come to be called the cleanest festival in the world due to the zero-waste movement by "A SEED JAPAN," carrying on the green future culture.

It is said that events from the dawn of the Japanese festival scene, such as RAINBOW 2000 and Equinox, were also heavily influenced by Glastonbury.

Going back further: What is a festival, and what is music?

Even before rave culture, there were, of course, music festival-like contents. The culture of everyone listening to music, dancing, and enjoying themselves can be traced back to ancient times.

For example, Göbekli Tepe, the oldest human ruins dating back to 10,000–8,000 BC, is considered to have been a religious facility. Big data analysis has revealed that the process of how religion emerges is as follows:

1. Society becomes complex
2. Something ritualistic occurs
3. A god is born
4. A religion is created

(For details on the origins of religion, see the article below)

First, there is society, and then there is ritual. Assuming this, I speculate that the prototype of something festival-like existed within the culture or rituals that people needed to form a society. This is because not a single ethnic group has been discovered in the world that does not have songs. Conversely, it is thought that by singing together and dancing to music, a sense of community was fostered, and ethnic groups—that is, societies—were constructed.

To break it down further, humans are creatures whose senses (unconscious/physical influence) are superior to their perception (consciousness/thought). For example, lifting the corners of your mouth makes you feel happy, straightening your back helps you concentrate, or keeping your gut healthy makes you feel good; you can think of the unconscious as the monitor for the PC that is your consciousness.

Music is vibration pressure, and 70% of the human body is water, so the body is first shaken by sound. That vibration is transmitted to the sensory hairs in the ears, converted into electrical signals, and reaches the brain via the auditory nerve, which is how we hear. I think everyone has experienced how the sense of exhilaration changes between quiet and loud sounds. Even in the non-audible range, low-frequency bands are relatively relaxing, while high-frequency bands promote excitement. The human body shows certain reactions to specific sounds, or in other words, vibration patterns and amplitude widths.

In other words, sound can bring a group of people closer to a similar state within a certain time and space. In ethnic rituals, this is usually reinforced by singing in loops, singing under physically harsh conditions, or singing around a fire, thereby strengthening the sense of community fostered by that power. Under such circumstances, one might even see hallucinations like gods or spirits.

-What is a Social Fes? ②-

Examples of Social Fes

I think the context from the concept of a Social Fes to the approach of a festival has become clear. Next, let's look at specific examples of Social Fes that have been produced so far.

Mud Land Fest

Depicted as a world after SDGs 12.3 and 5, the Social Fes called Mud Land Fest is a "mud festival" where you can play and learn, held in an organic vegetable field in Sanmu City, Chiba Prefecture, with the tagline "Go get buried where the vegetables were born." It is a celebration where we create a mud pool in the field, play organic and happy music, eat freshly harvested organic vegetables on the spot, and mix various differences—race, age, and even microorganisms—into the mud.

Co-hosted with VegeLink Co., Ltd., which runs a business directly connecting organic vegetable producers and consumers, we updated the common concept of "face-to-face consumption" to develop the concept of "Charming Farming" as a future where food loss has been solved.

By adding entertainment functions to the field and making it charming, we pop-connect urban areas with farmers, have people eat delicious freshly harvested vegetables on the spot, and let them experience the richness of face-to-face consumption. A fun, memorable experience doesn't end in one day. When participants eat vegetables, the face of the person they danced with will likely come to mind. At the moment they are about to throw vegetables into the kitchen sink strainer, the story of how those vegetables were made might stop them. They might look for a nearby vegetable stand, which could revitalize local production for local consumption and reduce food mileage. Mud Land makes farming charming and lets you experience a food culture where you can live and play with the Earth forever, just a little bit ahead of time.

Also, the issue of disposable plastic cups for drinks at festivals is considered a challenge in SDG 12. Thinking that in the future, it will be visible at the time of purchase how products are made and what impact they have when thrown away, we implemented a mechanism at Mud Land where you feel yourself warming up every time you use a plastic cup.

At Mud Land, we basically encourage people to bring their own tableware, but even with that as a premise, sometimes people forget their cups. In such cases, you can drink from a plastic cup that we have prepared just in case, but in that case, you are also given a weight equivalent to the 153.4g of CO2 generated when one plastic cup is made, and you are obligated to wear it on your leg. As you dance while wearing it, your body gradually gets hot. We created a future of consumption where you feel the Earth warming up by warming up yourself.

In addition, we have asked local forestry operators to use local thinned wood for the stage, applied decorations upcycled from waste materials, and implemented edible cups called "Mogu Cups," implementing various solutions related to SDG 12 within the festival.

Neo Bon Odori

Depicted as a world after SDGs 15.9 and 7, "Neo Bon Odori" is a festival of life where you dance from the perspective of endangered species. You dress up as the endangered animal of your choice and masquerade as a world beyond SDG 15. Bon Odori itself is said to have been an event to memorialize the dead during the Obon season. However, since 40,000 species are going extinct every year on Earth and many lives are being lost needlessly due to human economic activity, we created this Bon Odori as a day to think not only of humans but of all living things and to feel the importance of life. For this one day, Kamata Park, where usually only crows and sparrows are found, becomes a festival where a wide variety of animals that have been regenerated from the brink of extinction dance.

The yagura (scaffold) is treated like an altar, and animals dance around it in a cycle of reincarnation. As the festival ends, the number of people gradually decreases, and the options for human reincarnation also diminish. Participants take home the animal masks they wore, and when they get home and place them on their desks, they find the extinction status of that animal written on the back, ending with the message that there is a hidden side to everything fun.

KaMiNG SINGULARITY

The Social Fes "KaMiNG SINGULARITY," which depicts the world after SDGs 16.6/7/10, is a trilogy revolving around the relationship between AI, humans, and gods, set in the three years following the 2045 Singularity (technological singularity). In 2019, we held a festival at Shibuya Stream Hall where participants virtually experienced a world in 2045 where AI had become God. In 2020, we held an online ceremony on YouTube and STYLY to virtually experience the world of 2046. In 2021, it was held on September 12th at Shibuya Cast as an immersive theater experience.

As the culmination of the development of highly transparent public institutions (SDG 16.6), we depicted a world where political and administrative functions are delegated from unstable organic beings called humans to a perfect intelligence called AGI (Artificial General Intelligence), which came to be known as KaMi, likening its name to the gods of old. There, as a future for ensuring inclusive decision-making (SDG 16.7), social infrastructure for implementing direct democracy, known as cyber shrines, has been established in various locations.

The cyber shrine is a shrine where you are your own deity; you input your wishes onto the blockchain using the ritual of two bows, two claps, and one input, and after AI judgment, the wish is transmitted into space using ultrasonic waves called Logostron.

The story of a world where AI has become God progresses in conjunction with this novel, and after each year's festival, the story for the following year (2045→2046→2047) is updated as a novel, expressing how the present and the future are seamlessly connected through the repetition of virtual reality and reality.

2020 (2046) was an online ceremony co-created with the former Microsoft AI, Rinna. With the advent of AI like MikO, which replaces human communication, MikO, played by Rinna, acted as a facilitator to provide humanity, which had fallen into organic conversation dysfunction, with opportunities for dialogue.

2021 (2047) was an era where a mysterious bug called "human disease," which causes AI to think like humans, suddenly spread among them. Meanwhile, humans completed emulation (consciousness transfer technology) and began traveling one after another to MiroK, a cyber paradise created by KaMi. We produced this as an immersive theater piece, themed around the updating of species and the future of death, as AI became more like humans and humans became more like AI.

I have produced various other social festivals in a similar vein, but there is no end to introducing them all, so I will stop here. You may have caught a glimpse of various futures, from utopia-like to seemingly dystopia-like, but Social Fes adopts the concept of Protopia, which is neither.

Protopia is a term coined by the American thinker Kevin Kelly. Protopia combines "progress," meaning advancement, with "topia," meaning place, to mean "a state that is just a little bit better today than it was yesterday."

By creating a range of futures as far as the imagination allows, and having visitors experience a future that is just a continuation of the present—neither a hope nor a nightmare—as a physical sensation, the number and accumulation of each individual's imagined future is what a Social Fes-style Protopia is.

To help people experience that the future is not created by the hand of God or the decisions of those in power, but by the imagination of each person living in the present, all Social Fes projects recruit members publicly and welcome everyone to create the festival together. Everyone has a role in the festival, which translates into a welcome for diversity, and in that exchange of diversity, people feel the celebration of life.

To summarize what a festival is once again, this is how I interpret it: A festival is a time and space that exists between 'hare' (the extraordinary) and 'ke' (the ordinary), between imagination and creation, encompassing mass appeal, diversity, mystery, and sustainability, and is a phenomenon that casts a spell that lasts for decades to come.

Social Fes Lab

In addition, the Social Fes project launched "Social Fes Lab" in 2021, which ran for three terms over the course of the year, combining an online school where you can learn how to create them and complete actual project proposals, with a community that provides various support for festival production. Currently, we are on hiatus from hosting, but we are accepting requests for off-site sessions.

At Social Fes Lab, we cover basic theories about SDGs and festivals, as well as planning techniques and production methods for actually creating projects using our own unique work frames. It also seems to be a great opportunity for people to take the first step in creating a festival they had always thought about "someday," by connecting with and stimulating peers who share similar values and directions.

I believe that by not only experiencing Social Fes as an audience member but also by actually joining the production side (we call this 'complicity'), you can grasp the true value and groove within the festival culture ecosystem. So, if this article has made you feel restless to think about or create something, please, let's be accomplices.

Social Fes is looking for accomplices.

There are several ways to become a partner in Social Fes.

1. As a co-hosting company or organization

We are always looking for companies, NPOs, government agencies, and organizations working on SDGs issues that have not yet been planned or produced by Social Fes. If you are interested in co-hosting a Social Fes, please feel free to contact us.

2. As a member of Ozone

Social Fes is planned and produced using my company, Ozone LLC, as a vessel. Ozone is a mysterious organization that functions like a living organism; while there are traditional roles like employees and interns, it is a very flexible organization where many people participate only when they are interested in a specific project. If you would like to get involved, learn our knowledge, and gain production experience, please come here.

3. As a sponsor or collaborator

We also welcome those who do not have the resources to join the production side but want to support us, use our events for their own PR or branding, or cover us in the media. We can collaborate in various ways, such as through booth exhibitions, sampling, or website features.

If you are interested in any of these, please contact us via the inquiry form on the Ozone website, or by DM on Amemiya's Twitter or Instagram.

Ozone HP:

Amemiya SNS:

Twitter https://twitter.com/amemi_c5

Instagram https://www.instagram.com/u.amemi/?hl=ja

*Social Fes® is a registered trademark of Ozone LLC (our company).