Symposium Session 1: The Technology of Hope

There has been a long history which brought us from seeing a rainbow on the sky to a deeply understood framework of technologies of how to use colors.

We know how colors work in the eye and in the brain. We know how colors work in poetry and in print. We know, how we can utilize chemical molecules, inks and prints, precision machined optics, computers, pixels, matrix multiplications and shaders plus the whole recorded history of art to design things in color.

Similar to a discussion of color, the symposium framed hope as a design challenge: Hope is something which can be designed.

Design is a plan to accomplish a particular purpose. Technology allows us to weave design into the fabric of everyday life. Hope is a fundamental source of power. Hope can be professionally created and destroyed. And it is routinely being done by policy makers, politicians, terrorists, product designers, hackers, teachers, journalists, artists and parents.

Is there any hope? We believe it is. But how we can start? In small steps. Where should we start? At the foundations. Before we can tackle the political issues.

The technologies of color can only give us sunglasses to see a rose colored future – understanding the technology of hope is a lever to move the world.

Maren Urner talked about Constructive Journalism: While everybody is talking about fact-checking to fight fake news and misinformation, one important ingredient is usually ignored: our brain.
Elisabeth Wegner talked about a pattern language which creates hope by analyzing the rhetoric of political powers. While populist forces around the globe are putting a rhetoric of pseudo-hope to use in order to get elected, Elisabeth Wegner analyzed how they do it. She showed the effects they employ and how their »talking points« may be countered and debunked. Together we had a look at a metaethical theory for constructing efficient public speech. Looking at current examples we saw how both politicians and non-politicians can utilize professional talking points to make an impression of kindness, wisdom and – if it is advantageous – to evoke a feeling of hope in potential voters or customers.
In her talk ‘HOPE: POWER, FORCE OR WEAKNESS? A psychological view of the healing and destructive aspects of hope’ Johanna Disselhoff talked about how hope can empower us and lead our behaviour. Driven by hope we can visualise our future, can combine our energy and use our ressources. But what happens, when we loose hope? Is hope related to mental illnesses and burnout? Can we trust our hopeful thoughts? And can we use hope as a guidance for our life? This talk will discuss different aspects of and practical experience with hope and (hopefully) deliver some ideas, how to use hope as a ressource for your own life.