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Dan Lockton

@danlockton.com

2K followers 5.9K following 4.7K posts

Utrecht, Netherlands + Norwich, UK Director of the new Institute for Sustainable Worlds, Norwich University of the Arts ⦿ Design—imagination—climate—futures ⦿ Imaginaries Lab http://imaginari.es ⦿ New Metaphors http://newmetaphors.com ⦿ he/him

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Dan Lockton @danlockton.com · Mar 27

What should an 'Institute for Sustainable Worlds' do?

I wrote some initial thoughts about what we're trying at Norwich University of the Arts: architectures.danlockton.co.uk/2025/03/26/c...

A view towards Agricultural Hall Plain, Norwich, from the top floor of 20 Bank Plain. It is a misty morning with the sun visible through the mist. Cars are queuing to cross a junction with a Boer War memorial of a bronze angel on it.

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Dan Lockton @danlockton.com · 2d

a seattle is a turtle with a little sofa on its back

Dan Lockton @danlockton.com · 3d

As far as I can tell, there’ve been two (or maybe three) different Peak brands in British petrol station history — the current Derbyshire firm is the longest-lived! www.flickr.com/photos/danlo...

Peak, Brassington nr Wirksworth, Derbyshire, 1993

Peak Oils (difficult to search for!) are still going: www.peakoil.co.uk They were Texaco distributors.

www.flickr.com

Dan Lockton @danlockton.com · 3d

A very niche post for the #petrocultures historians of East Anglia, but I thought it was interesting to see “carless” as an intentional typo on the Hiscox advert, as I headed on the train towards Harwich,where for 60 years the Carless name hasn’t been a typo at all

The interior of a Greater Anglia class 745 train with the destination “Next station: Manningtree” on the display. An advert for Hiscox insurance intentionally includes the typo “carless” instead of “careless”

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Reposted by Dan Lockton

👻madeline boOoOoOodent👻 @oldenoughtosay.com · 3d

the answer to the trolley problem is not to pick who to sacrifice, it’s to dismantle the system that led to an unsafe trolley crossing.

if any part of your morality strategy involves picking a group to let die on a hill, throw the entire strategy out. it’s wrong.

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Dan Lockton @danlockton.com · 3d

pretty sure the name Zafira has an Arabic origin

Reposted by Dan Lockton

Toby Earle 🇺🇦 @tobyontv.bsky.social · 3d

if you’ve ever watched the apprentice, that’s the world without arts or humanities degrees

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Reposted by Dan Lockton

Petra Boynton @petraboynton.bsky.social · 4d

With yet another university hosted event closed to 'non academics' (aka those not employed by a university)* I'm just going to leave this piece by @drhelenkara.bsky.social and myself here blogs.lse.ac.uk/impactofsoci...

* yes I know it's utter nonsense and academics/researchers exist outside unis

Institutional affiliation should not be a requirement for doing research - Impact of Social Sciences

Universities espouse a universalist approach to creating research-based knowledge. Helen Kara & Petra Boynton argue, from the outside these claims are hollow.

blogs.lse.ac.uk

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Reposted by Dan Lockton

Mary Gillis @marygillis.bsky.social · 5d

Social media is a utility that should not be owned by private, for-profit companies run by random people who routinely go insane. It should be a publicly owned service, like the post office.

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Dan Lockton @danlockton.com · 5d

Not convinced that this is really a safe crossing design. At this moment cars from the right have a green light, but because the wait is so long, and the cars on the left are visibly stopped by a red light, pedestrians decide it's probably? safe to cross. Just terrible design.

A large group of pedestrians and someone on a bike crossing the road when the "red man" figure is showing. Norwich.

Dan Lockton @danlockton.com · 5d

is there anything in "repetitive beasts" as a misreading? A smiley-face t-shirted monster crying, in handcuffs, being led away by police as it apologises for telling the same story again :/

Dan Lockton @danlockton.com · 5d

also: it's a shame the article does not even mention the effects of interaction design and the digital context, which have completely changed what the field of design is, the ways in which people encounter and use it in everyday life, and the corporate power structures that wield it as a tool

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Dan Lockton @danlockton.com · 5d

There's definitely a lot here—but I'd argue that the "strange situation in which young designers are situated between activism, performative gesture and a residual urge to create" is exactly because they recognise that design as only "a tool to improve lives" was a naïve approach to "social purpose"

Edwin Heathcote @edwinheathcote.bsky.social · 7d

on.ft.com/46M9mXI Why designers abandoned their dreams of changing the world. Free to Read.

Why designers abandoned their dreams of changing the world

Design was once seen as a tool to improve lives — but as modernism has become marketing, that sense of social purpose has drifted away

on.ft.com

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Reposted by Dan Lockton

Olivia Guest · Ολίβια Γκεστ @olivia.science · 7d

New preprint 🌟 Psychology is core to cognitive science, and so it is vital we preserve it from harmful frames. @irisvanrooij.bsky.social & I use our psych and computer science expertise to analyse and craft:

Critical Artificial Intelligence Literacy for Psychologists. doi.org/10.31234/osf...

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Cover page of Guest, O., & van Rooij, I. (2025, October 4). Critical Artificial Intelligence Literacy for Psychologists. https://doi.org/10.31234/osf.io/dkrgj_v1

Table 1 Guest, O., & van Rooij, I. (2025, October 4). Critical Artificial Intelligence Literacy for Psychologists. https://doi.org/10.31234/osf.io/dkrgj_v1

Table 2 Guest, O., & van Rooij, I. (2025, October 4). Critical Artificial Intelligence Literacy for Psychologists. https://doi.org/10.31234/osf.io/dkrgj_v1

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Reposted by Dan Lockton

Joel Morris @gralefrit.bsky.social · 6d

The “LLM AIs are actually people and you mustn’t bully them” thing is like instituting a full murder investigation into that train that got walled up in Thomas the Tank Engine because it had a face on it.

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Reposted by Dan Lockton

Ryan Boyd @ryanboyd.bsky.social · 7d

Billionaires want the worst of the past (college as failson playground) with the worst of the future (everything must be private equity)

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Reposted by Dan Lockton

Susan Rinkunas @susanrinkunas.com · 8d

people who would sacrifice the human rights of others will get people already in the tent killed

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Dan Lockton @danlockton.com · 13d

boss: you get that new john cage record for me?
me: sure did boss, just like you asked

a blank (ungrooved) side of a record on a turntable

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Dan Lockton @danlockton.com · 19d

sounds like leave [to remain] doesn't mean leave [to remain]

Dan Lockton @danlockton.com · 20d

Play with materials and methods designed to help you…

- Surface worldviews
- Facilitate collective imagination
- Stay with the trouble
- Unmake systems
- Embrace ambiguity

… in settings ranging from classrooms to societal dialogues.

Dan Lockton @danlockton.com · 20d

If you're in #Utrecht, come along on Friday 26 September for the launch of the Library for Transformative Play @utrechtuniversity.bsky.social

More info / register: unusualcollaborations.ewuu.nl/agenda/playi...

26/09/25, 12:00–14:00
The Playground, Vening Meinesz C Building
Utrecht University

Join us for an open jam with the newly launched…
Library for
Transformative Play
26th September 2025, 12:00–14:00
The Playground — Vening Meinesz C Building
Utrecht University
—Open to all, with free food and drinks
—Chance to take home a Roles and Relics game!
Come play with materials and methods
designed to help you…
Surface worldviews
Facilitate collective
imagination
Stay with the trouble
Unmake systems
Embrace ambiguity
… in settings ranging from classrooms
to societal dialogues.
The library is the result of a four-year
project funded by the Centre for
Unusual Collaborations: Playing with
the Trouble,with Raimon Ripoll Bosch,
Jet Vervoort, Maikel Waardenburg, Dan
Lockton, Josie Chambers, Jessica
Duncan, Joost Vervoort, Joyce Browne,
and Danvy Vu.
Contact: j.m.chambers@uu.nl

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Dan Lockton @danlockton.com · 20d

Newsletter for September 2025: Troubling Transitions, Transformative Play, and Between Worlds: imaginari.es/troubling-tr...

The open door of the studio in Utrecht, with the logos of the Imaginaries Lab and Norwich University of the Arts - Institute for Sustainable Worlds

Dan Lockton @danlockton.com · 21d

...there's a long way to go before it becomes embedded as a different way of thinking in the UK.

Anyway, not a very exciting thread—just something that I use multiple times every month in #Norwich and almost every time I see someone walk/run across because it looks safe to cross when it isn't (end)

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Dan Lockton @danlockton.com · 21d

Basically: Dutch drivers are used to giving way to cyclists and pedestrians when turning (in part because most of them are also cyclists themselves, when not driving!). While recent revisions of the UK Highway Code introduce something similar around hierarchies www.gov.uk/guidance/the... ... (7/n)

Dan Lockton @danlockton.com · 21d

But also: Dutch drivers are generally more aware of the "weak road user" concept nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artikel... that puts at least 50% of the liability on them for any collision with pedestrians or cyclists, even if the driver had the right of way. (6/n)

nl.wikipedia.org

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Dan Lockton @danlockton.com · 21d

I'm not saying this type of crossing design wouldn't happen in the Netherlands, but my experience from living in Amsterdam and then Utrecht for the past 5 years is that it would have been substantially improved, not least because provision for cyclists would also benefit pedestrians. (5/n)