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NOTE: Interested parties can access this Brief on Google for reference.

Thank you for your interest in joining The Arts Department connected to Mission Kaiju_Love_Care_Futures_02026. This document serves as the creative brief for The Godzilla Mission Arts Department.

Should you choose to accept this assignment, please notify us via email (thegodzillapapers@gmail.com). Please include a brief description of your creative practice and a note about why you are interested in joining The Arts Department.

We will invite you to the Godzilla Mission Arts Department Discord Server, where you can meet your colleagues, collaborate, and ask for support. Note that joining the Discord is not a requirement for joining the Arts Department.

Once you have completed the assignment, you will receive an Official Godzilla Mission Arts Department Welcome Package™️ in the mail. For creatives outside of shipping possibility, you will receive a digital welcome package.

Goals & Objectives

The goal of the Godzilla Mission Arts Department is to create art that imagines what the future might look like if humankind were to implement some of the lessons and themes outlined in the Godzilla Mission Field Reports. These might be illustrations of the futures themselves, or imagined artifacts that exist in these futures.

Keep in mind that the Field Office Team will usually produce one Field Report per film, so if you are hoping to illustrate lessons from a particular film, let us know by emailing thegodzillapapers@gmail.com and we will notify you when the corresponding Field Report is available.

Read our Guiding Principles and find more context for how your work will fit into the entire project in this project’s Research Methodology.

Instructions

1. First thing’s first: the purpose of our work together is to imagine just and equitable futures that work for everyone. We are not imagining dystopia—there are other venues for that.Given everything going on in the world, this may feel hard to access. If you need to, put on your science fiction hat! Get weird! It helps if you’re willing to feel a little silly and gently ask those voices in your head that say, “that will NEVER happen!” to please be quiet for a moment.
2. Peruse the Godzilla Field Reports and identify a lesson or two that most resonate with your hopeful-for-the-future-self. Try to limit yourself to up to one or two lessons at most: the work of imagining can get unruly, fast! You can always repeat this process with different lessons. The Field Office tries to publish Field Reports weekly, so you should have new lessons to choose from each week.
3. Pick a moment in the future: 5 years from now, 10, 40, 100, 300 years in the future … it’s up to you!

4. Using that lesson, turn it over in your mind, heart, and body. Ask yourself and others: what would the world look like if we implemented this lesson? Sit with it. However you think and process best, do that! This may look like journaling, meditation, sketching, discussing with friends, taking a walk, dancing it out … whatever you need to get your imagination going. A helpful prompt for ideation might be: “When humankind [implements X lesson], I see a future where …”. Then, to identify which part(s) of the future you might work with, think about:

   1. “An artifact from this future might be…”, OR

   2. “A feeling from this future might include…”, OR

   3. “An event from this future might be…”, OR

   4. “A policy from this future might be…”, OR

   5. “A community who lives in this future might be…”, OR

   6. …something else entirely that we at Mission HQ haven’t thought of!

5. Now, imagine it! Use any medium you’d like. Audio, visual, architectural, written, sung, performed, something else entirely—it’s all art! If you feel stuck or would like more guidance, post in the Discord or reach out to thegodzillapapers@gmail.com. As stated in this project’s Research Methodology, the Field Office team is allowed to be in thought partnership with the Arts Department, but they are not allowed to give The Arts Department explicit directions/instructions.

SOME RESOURCES

If the instructions above sound absolutely wacky to you, don’t worry!

Here are some resources to help you build a better understanding of what the heck we’re talking about:

1. Re: “An artifact from this future might be…” Design Fiction / Futures Artifacts:

   1. What is Design Fiction? By the Near Future Laboratory

   2. An example of Design Fiction from 2030 by the Lab for Radical Museum Futures

2. Some authors and thinkers we are inspired by include:

   1. Octavia Butler

   2. Ursula K. Le Guin

   3. adrienne maree brown

   4. bell hooks

SOME NOTES

• Get zany! Get crazy! If your idea makes you a little bit sweaty because it’s really “out there,” great! That’s what we need to build ourselves better futures.
• Don’t rush! You have time.
• This might feel awkward at first. That’s ok! We’re imagining something that we’ve never seen—a future that works for everyone.
• Try to not let perfectionism get in the way. Your imagined future may fall apart when we introduce another variable. That’s fine, if not preferred! We’re in the ideas stage, baby!

Audience

While—with your express permission—your work will be published on the project’s Substack and social channels,the primary audience for your work are the attendees of the project’s Community Sensemaking sessions. You can read about the imagined flow of these sessions in point 3 of the Data Collection and Analysis section of our Research Methodology.

You will always own whatever you produce as a part of The Godzilla Mission Arts Department.

Assets and Deliverables

When ready, please let thegodzillapapers@gmail.com know and we will grant you limited access to the Godzilla Arts Department Assets folder, where you can upload all relevant content to a folder specific to you:

1. For the artwork itself, please use the following naming convention: Name_MMDDYYYY_TitleOfWork

2. Please provide a separate document that states:

   1. Name, portfolio/website for attribution and for us to promote your work

   2. A short bio

   3. The lesson or lesson(s) you chose for your imagined future

   4. Handles on Bluesky, Substack, Instagram, LinkedIn, or other socials so we can tag you (if you’d like)

   5. Anything you’d like to share about your process or anything you learned/thought about/hated about while working with us

NOTE: If your work is more ethereal, such as a performance piece (dance, music, theatre, etc.), please provide a recording and/or transcript of the piece. If you provide us with a video or photos, please make sure that no audience members or people other than yourself (and your collaborators, if you have them) are in the frame and that we have permission to use the footage. If we need to figure out release/consent forms, we can do that!

Timeline

While we do not have a set timeline, we understand that some folks work better with a deadline. If you are one of these people, reach out to thegodzillapapers@gmail.com and we will work together to come up with a reasonable schedule.

Distribution Process

As mentioned above: while—with your express permission—your work will be published on the project’s Substack and social channels, the primary audience for your work are the attendees of the project’s Community Sensemaking sessions, which are a core activity of the third phase of our data collection and analysis.

Along with Field Reports and other mission assets, your work will be referenced in a Community Sensemaking session. You can read about the imagined flow of these sessions in point 3 of the Data Collection and Analysis section of our Research Methodology.

We encourage members of The Godzilla Arts Department to participate in these sessions! To stay up-to-date on these events, fill out this form.

Who We Are

We are a distributed team of researchers, artists, and goofballs who believe in the idea of futures that work for all living beings. Please note that we are not an official or incorporated organization. That said, we are looking into what it might take to secure funding for this work. Please let us know if you have any ideas.

Thank you again for your interest. Please do not hesitate to reach out with questions or ideas.

Be sure to subscribe to our public-facing knowledge repository. Please share with like-minded colleagues and friends—our research depends on public engagement!

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