How might we reimagine economic systems to center human dignity rather than productivity?
What if simply existing was enough to earn your livelihood? Energy Economy is a speculative design project set in 2063, where thermal energy from our bodies converts into currency and existence itself becomes the basis of an economy. In the heart of Times Square, we created a pop-up experience inviting people to enroll in a free fictional seven-day trial, not to predict the future, but to interrogate the present systems that govern value, labor, and access, and what we've come to accept as inevitable.
Key Outcomes
Engaged over 100+ participants in Times Square through direct conversation and interaction
Participants brought others back to experience the pop-up—demonstrating the compelling pull of narrative-led design.
Generated over a dozen new critical questions from the public—insights we later analyzed to inform reflections on labor, equity, and energy politics.
The project was featured in final presentations and invited further discussion in speculative design forums.
Role: Design Researcher, Graphic Designer, and Facilitator
Collaborators: Times Square Alliance
Duration: 4 weeks | 2022
Concept
The Energy Economy operates on a simple premise: harness excess thermal energy from the body and convert it into Eons, a currency for accessing life's essentials. Once enrolled, clients choose five living costs to direct their Eons toward - housing, climate stabilizers, healthcare, groceries, intergalactic wifi. Any remaining Eons are deposited into an Energy Reserve that can be passed to future generations. The system is deliberately provocative, raising real questions: What qualifies as worthy work? Who benefits from our labor? What does dignity mean when survival is reframed as a natural resource?
How The World Was Built
Printing and assembling of artifacts
The Artifacts:
Posters for welcoming and explaining our technology
{left} Our kits including sterile swabs, Topical tattoos, and unique identifier codes; {right} A will statement for allocating one's energy reserve to future generations
A sheet to select expenses that can be off-set by spending their energy eons
The Experience
In Times Square, visitors encountered a fully realized service counter. An Energy Agent explained the product and its logic. An Energy Doula guided clients through selecting their five utilities and introduced an addendum they could add to their will. An Energy Engager installed the “device” (temporary tattoo) through a painless procedure, and activated it with Icy Hot as if initiating energy collection. People absorbed the entire enrollment process before receiving their mark.
They asked questions we hadn't anticipated: Can I opt out? What if I don't generate enough heat? Who owns this energy? The temporary tattoo became a badge of belonging in an alternative future. They compared their energy distributions with strangers, shared why and how they divided their Eons, showed their tattoos to their friends and brought others back to experience it.
Reflection
Over 100 participants engaged directly with the world we built. But the real impact was in what they asked and how they moved through the experience. Speculative design created enough distance to think honestly. By stepping into a fictional future, people could interrogate labor, dignity, and value in ways that felt safer and more playful, which otherwise would be too direct or uncomfortable to address.
The fact that participants brought others back, that conversations lingered, that the questions kept evolving, showed that speculative design is a powerful discourse tool. One cannot force people into a future they don’t understand; we can only try to bring them closer to one of the possibilities through world-building and storytelling.