About — False Parameters

Process is the work
Getting to know a thing
Commissions
Conversations
Publications
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False Parameters has emerged from over a decade of research and practice, before assuming its current (errant) format. We focus on exploring and deconstructing the concepts and models that underpin our thinking about how change and social impact happens.

We work with non-obvious forms of innovation, following bizarre motifs that may (initially) appear irrelevant, but stir the imagination to think afresh. These perspectives are then applied to complex, entangled challenges.

Actively seeking out the unknown can be a (partial) antidote to our contemporary patterns of collective problem solving. Injecting the bizarre and unusual into the discourse of global challenges can help us move beyond established narratives and problem solving cliches.

The approach was developed from research and practice. It’s been tested over the past five years (and developed over 10) in large EU collaborations, small collectives as well as in an alliance of small nations.

We work with organisations or groups of organisations, dealing with social impact or large-scale challenges, who want to bring new perspectives and genuinely different thinking, being and engaging into their current problem solving.

The idea of working with the strange or unfitting point of view, may appear at first glance to be frivolous. But with sensitivity and care, it can be infused into environments with deep complexity, delicate or unstable politics, differing perspectives, varying backgrounds or languages and even into domains with substantial regulation.

We work with a variety of methods and approaches including:

Provocations, interviews, op-eds and publications (books, zines, articles, published academic papers).
Comissions
Conversations and meandering discourses.
Research into non-traditional scholarship and practices.
Exhibitions
Gathering design
Integrating all of the above into established, large-scale organisations and change-making agencies.

East End Kids Chess Congres, 1975

Joanna PetkiewiczMA Cultural Studies (Audio-Visual Culture)

Has been conceptualising, developing, executing and commissioning art projects in various disciplines for nearly two decades. Since 2018 her practice has bridged into innovation and social change initiatives such as EIT Climate-KIC (Social Innovation & Experimentation).

Former curator & dramaturg at Berliner Festspiele / Gropius Bau (Berlin), creative producer at Artichoke (London) and Spitalfields Music (London).

Presently: Co-director and co-founder of VVSSL GmbH, a company dedicated to immersive storytelling and exploring how sound can shift perception and create space for new ways of understanding. Long-term member of Berlin’s Institute for Sound and Music e.V.

Michelle Zucker PhD Biochemistry, Hons (Neurobiology), BSc

Specialises in reimagining the inner workings of complex change, working at the intersection of social innovation, experimentation and how humans cope with change. Has extensive experience in both Australian and pan-European innovation and social impact networks.

Has held/holds several senior leadership roles including Director of Social Activation and Experimentation at EIT Climate-KIC, Senior Executive Designer at ThinkPlace, as well as Global Ecosystem Steward as part of Arts for Humanity.

Also held/holds several highly emergent experimental and research roles, being the inaugural Thinker in Residence for Climate-KIC Australia, inaugural Research Fellow at Arantzazulab, and Co-Steward of the Beyond the Rules Lab at Dark Matter Labs.