Mapping Infrastructures of Mystery
During our two previous mystery events we noticed that our participants were really keen to talk about the individual experiences they had had that made them feel truly in touch with the wonders of life and life itself. We talked plenty about where this mystery shows up for them; what it feels like; and how it affects them. This sharing helps us understand the power of mystery and plurality in how we might experience it, but these individual lenses don鈥檛 allow us to organize for that power just yet. During the second session we therefore introduced the concept of infrastructures of mystery as the structural conditions that make these mystery experiences possible. The examples and musings participants came up with were helpful in creating an initial ontology for infrastructures of mystery.
Below we present this ontology and additional input which we gathered during a third international, online mystery session. We invite you to start using this ontology to see mystery and organise for it in your own surroundings or spheres of influence as well.
We kicked off the sessions with an exercise of gathering seeds. Seeds are radical initiatives in the now that help us steer towards better futures (here: a future in which mystery is valued and centered). Although the seeds approach is not part of the ontology, we included this exercise because thinking of these real-world examples helps people access the thinking of what enables us to experience mystery and what context this happens in. Click on the image below to find out what emerged.
Next we presented two ways of looking at infrastructures of mystery. We looked at how infrastructures show up in our world. And then at what they exactly are; what the infrastructure component of it actually is. Click on the image below to immerse yourself in the ontology.
To let matter become an infrastructure of mystery, or to encourage those that already are to continuously allow for mystery, we wonder what we can do. We came up with a number of physical and mental actions that we can take as a society, as an institution, a group or individual to cultivate infrastructures of mystery. Click on the image below to find them.
Want to stay up to date about this research? Reach out to b.jelgerhuisswildens@uu.nl to be added to our signal chat.