Every year, Peclers Paris brings together experts from all horizons – futurists, sociologists, semiologists and strategists – to identify the weak signals of the world’s future major evolutions. The stirrings of new aspirations, beliefs, relationships with oneself and with others, which will change the consumer landscape in the short/medium term. This study then feeds both our consumer intelligence work and our trend forecasting (aesthetics and product uses), around six pillars: belief, nature, hedonism, identities, science and space-time.
Extract from the new CONCERTATION PROSPECTIVE, Creative Clatter (“Nature” chapter), a review of new creative approaches which, through hybridization, seek to reconcile cultures to solve challenges and propose desirable futures.
EVOLUTION: FROM HOPE-FILLED CONTEMPLATION TO THE SEARCH FOR LASTING FORMULAS
Faced with the urgency of the ecological crisis, looking for solutions through a contemplative observation of nature and its ingenuity has become too time-consuming. Nevertheless looking for solutions, individuals are turning to new, reassuring beliefs and imagining a calmer relationship between nature and culture. Their view of nature is imbued with influences from science, bringing ultra-concrete, industrializable solutions to the dream of creating a new Eden that depolarizes nature and tech.
The phenomenon takes many forms. In search of THE magic formula for sustainability, individuals draw on multiple solutions and beliefs in an attempt to reconcile them, while thinkers, scientists and creative people respond to the climate crisis with solutions that are sometimes ultra-concrete, sometimes fantastical. At the same time, ultra-self-sufficiency in the natural environment is romanticized by individuals already focused on rebuilding the world after.
MACRO-TREND 1: DREAMLIKE SPECULATIONS
From the crossroads between the fantasy of inter-connectivity between man and nature, and a mystical and mythical view of nature (two subjects addressed in CONCERTATION PROSPECTIVE 2022), grows an ever more radical dream of rewilding.
Often the source of dystopian fictions, technology is now invading imaginary worlds linked to environmental protection. From the success of Avatar 2 to the resulting depression syndrome (P.A.D. -post avatar depression- appeared in the Urban Dictionnary as soon as the first film was released), the dream of escaping into futuristic Edens, between nature and technology, raises questions about distress in the face of contemporary reality. The poetry of these fictions encourages us to adopt a less polarized viewpoint.
“What if? What if life on earth had evolved differently? What if animals were gifted with poetry? What if we walked on Mars while remaining on Earth? Relating facts the way they could have happened, an uchrony designates a fictional reconstruction of history. The exhibition is visited as many disturbing parallel stories.”
KEY TREND 1: EXPERIMENTAL BIOVERSE
If flora and fauna continue to function as beneficial refuges, the dangers they face (mainly due to the hand of man) prompt us to imagine their future evolution. Constantly inviting us to take a fresh look at the beauty of living things, our designers are inventing an enchanted nature. By becoming the architects of a futuristic Eden, between technology and dream, experimentation and fantasy, they propose a world where nature is transformed by man, to heal his ills.
Transforming dreams – Essay on Oneiric Flora, Daniel Godínez Nivón, Triennale Milano, 2022
Being in contact with nature is healing, and changing the way we look at it could be life-saving. Artist Daniel Godínez imagines a speculative landscape. Following the traditional practices of Mexican midwives, for whom dreams are a learning model, children were invited to describe their dreams during a therapeutic workshop. Working with scientists as if they were real, a new fantasized fauna emerged.
Organic therapies – Carina Shoshtary for Synne Sanden, Norway, 2023
While treatments inspired by nature renew our relationship with the world, aquatic worlds fascinate and stimulate new aesthetics. Carina Shoshtary’s jewelry is an invitation to imagine worlds where nature and humankind hybridize for mutual benefit. For singer Synne Sanden, the designer imagines aquatic sensors that link the living with the aim of adopting reconciliatory narratives.
KEY TREND 2: ANIMAL VOICES
Man is struggling to reverse his dominant relationship with living things. Yet, fantasizing about interconnection, he seeks to commune with fauna. Language, the symbol of critical thought and seen as the hallmark of man, invites itself into the fictions of the animal world and questions these relations of power. Through language, animals become humanized and individualized within a community (they can communicate with their peers). Man is then forced to consider them as beings rather than things. More generally, by giving voice to the sounds of nature, as its mode of expression, artists contribute to the emergence of new, sensitive narratives.
Tech at the service of nature – How to Speak Whale, Grand Central Publishing , USA, 2022
New technologies allow us to imagine new civilizational frontiers. Following his meeting with entrepreneurs developing an AI based on language, the animal filmmaker imagined a future where inter-species contact would be naturalized, particularly with whales. For him, understanding animals’ inner selves leads to a respect that will change the way we look at the natural world and how we choose to protect it.
Making it audible – Micro Magic Land, Ben Frost Broken Spectre, Richard Mosse, Australia, 2022
Driven by a community of sound hunters, field recording reveals the complexity of environments from which humans are often distanced. For the ecological film Broken Spectre, musician Ben Frost transformed the sounds of the Amazon rainforest into a score about environmental disaster. Using ultrasonic microphones to record normally inaudible bats, birds, and insects, he creates a sensitive narrative about ecology.
HOW TO EXPLOIT THIS MACRO-TREND
- RETAIL
Combine references from the digital and living worlds to immerse consumers in enchanting commercial universes, both physical and digital.
- COMMUNICATION
Develop ultra-immersive communications, in dreamlike plant worlds, and pay particular attention to sound: far from aseptic sound, let us hear the slightest noises that, speculatively, would constitute the environment.
- PRODUCT
Through the development of innovative and technical materials, the use of AI to hybridize references, and embedded technologies, creates products inspired by the fantastic aspect of flora and fauna.
PROSPECTIVE VISION: FOR WHOM, WHY AND HOW
Put at the service of brands, foresight feeds creativity and invites us to think, depending on the sector of activity, about how to respond to the changing values of our society, while always cultivating its uniqueness.
Every year, Peclers Paris brings together a panel of experts from all walks of life for a Concertation Prospective, which then takes the form of a detailed document, our bible of singular futures. We then invite our partners to share it with their employees in the form of interactive, collaborative workshops: Prospective Days. Brand strategists and industry experts from the fashion, beauty, design and consumer goods sectors can then support you in appropriating these trends and transforming them into proprietary levers.
To find out more and immerse yourself in other dynamics, don’t hesitate to contact us: