There is a certain kind of clarity that only comes from walking. Walking through the streets of Paris recently, the rhythm of my steps accompanied by a favorite podcast playing in my ears, I found myself captivated by the idea that our reality is inherently incomplete. The world around us is always in a state of becoming, constantly leaning towards what the German philosopher Ernst Bloch articulated as the Not yet (Noch-Nicht). It’s an idea that perfectly anchors the spirit of our new chapter and immediately brought to mind something Rainer Maria Rilke wrote in Letters to a Young Poet: “The future enters into us, to be transformed into us, long before it happens.”
For so long, we’ve treated dreams as a nocturnal retreat, a subconscious escape from a waking world that feels too rigid or overwhelming. But if the world is truly incomplete, Our dreams and daydreams are much stronger. They become our “anticipatory consciousness,” our way of approaching and shaping this Not Yet. It’s not an escape from reality, but one energetic, radical rehearsal for impending material realities.
“There are enough daydreams out there, we just haven’t considered them enough. Even with ours eyes open, things can be quite colorful or dreamlike inside our heads. If the tendency to improve our fortunes does not sleep even in our sleep –
how should he do it when we are awake?’ – Ernst Bloch, The Principle of Hope
Reuben Wu, Thin Places | more about the photo series here
Bloch argued that what we create is part of a ‘wishscape’, born of what we feel is missing in the present. He distinguished between idle desire and what he called “educated hope.” This is a hope that is rooted in the conditions of our world today: it seeks the trend of what is already being built, the latent state of what we collectively desire, and most importantly, it has the power to move us. As he wrote in The Principle of Hope, ‘Daydreaming can provide inspirations that do not require interpretation, but practice, it builds castles in the air as plans too, and not always only imaginary.’
In this chapter, Dreams in Motion, we explore what happens when these blueprints come down to earth. What if our dreams weren’t just nocturnal hallucinations, but systems already in motion?
Within our creative ecosystem, I find that nowhere is this transition from dreams and daydreams to tangible realities more visible than during Milan Design Week. For a few days each year, the city’s historic palaces and industrial districts become a collective landscape of desire. The urban arena is transformed into a living laboratory where alternative realities are rehearsed and where designers prototype emotional, symbolic and sensual futures. The ephemeral nature of these installations offer glimpses of what our future might be like, proving that imagination and dreaming is not an escape from reality, but a vital testing ground for new values, attitudes and relationships. It is precisely with this desire to bridge the abstract and the physical that we step beyond the digital screen this year. To bring our Not-Jet explorations to life, designboom is being organized ROOM FOR A DREAMa space-specific takeover at the ME Milan Il Duca hotel. By intervening in a space so inextricably linked to sleep, we transform a place of nocturnal rest into an awakened, immersive reverie right in the heart of the city. It is our plan that came down to earth.
The Cinema of Dreams by Paf atelier in the takeover of designboom in Milan | more about the project here
Importantly, Not-Aye’s exploration extends far beyond the temporal and geographical boundaries of Design Week. While our dispatches from Milan will focus intently on these immediate “dreams in motion,” this chapter serves as a much broader vessel. From temporary worlds that prioritize visceral experience over permanence, to spaces and objects as affective vehicles that translate our personal, collective, and political dreams into material form, we expand our gaze to examine a diverse topography of dream scenarios in past, present, and future contexts.
“Everything is a dream. The play of form, of existence, is the dream of essence. The rocks have their dreams and the earth changes…”. ― Ursula K. Le Guin, The Lathe of Heaven
As Steven West I explained during my walk, unpacking Bloch’s theory, “Our consciousness and the world are deeply entangled, always co-constitutive of each other.” The future is not an event that just happens to us. it is something we actively dream exists, object by object, space by space. I invite you to join us to explore tomorrow’s testing grounds, embrace our unsolved world, and keep your dreams moving.
Dream by Stephen Antonakos, currently at the B. & M. Theocharakis Foundation in Athens | image by designboom
