Synesyn

A tool stack for staging collective imagination

Synesyn is the central operational framework developed through Forward Remembrance: Exploring Latent Utopias, the PhD artistic research project by Ayodele Arigbabu at the Trondheim Academy of Fine Art, NTNU. It is the tool stack behind many of the experiments, workshops, performances, and installations associated with Metapunkt.

The framework began as a research apparatus for working with generative AI in artistic and speculative contexts. It has since grown into a modular platform for scenario-making, collaborative imagination, AI-assisted facilitation, symbolic mapping, narrative generation, and visual synthesis.

Within the Metapunkt trajectory, Synesyn is the engine that allows a speculative idea to become a structured encounter. It helps groups move from scattered thoughts, values, stories, and prompts toward shared scenarios that can be explored, questioned, and transformed.

How It Works

Synesyn combines human facilitation with AI-assisted reasoning and creative generation. Its different modules support the movement from idea to scenario, from scenario to interaction, and from interaction to reflection.

The framework includes tools for semantic mapping, scenario orchestration, character-based roleplay, generative image workflows, pattern synthesis, and provenance tracking. These tools can be used in workshops, artistic installations, foresight sessions, educational settings, and experimental public engagements.

At its core, Synesyn treats AI not as an oracle, but as a participant in a guided process. The system is designed to help users explore alternatives, surface assumptions, and make the conditions of a generated output more visible.

Main Components

Metapunkt
The orchestration layer for designing and guiding structured collaborative processes.

ScenSyn
An interactive scenario and roleplay engine used for generative theatre, workshop facilitation, and speculative worldbuilding.

SynTree
A semantic reasoning and mapping component for organising ideas, concepts, relations, and narrative structures.

SynPunkt
A visual and staging layer for rendering generated material, spatial interfaces, and image-based outputs.

SynAxes
A pattern-mapping and synthesis layer concerned with relations, dimensions, values, and structured transformations.

Synesyn Hub
The service layer that connects the modules, manages state, supports persistence, and enables more stable platform development.

From Research Tool to Public Platform

Synesyn was developed first for artistic research, supporting projects such as Playing Future Narratives, Ìrètí Ọkàn, and Stochastic Dreams. These projects tested how generative AI could support social dreaming, speculative design, telematic performance, and symbolic interaction.

With support from NTNU Discovery, Synesyn is now undergoing pilot development aimed at making the framework more stable, accessible, and usable beyond its original research context. This includes strengthening the core architecture, improving the user interface, embedding expert foresight facilitation into AI copilots, and preparing open-core licensing and contributor pathways.

The long-term aim is for Synesyn to support cultural organisations, municipalities, artists, researchers, educators, designers, and civic teams working with complex futures.

Why Synesyn Matters

Many AI tools produce outputs quickly, but leave users with little sense of how those outputs were shaped or what alternatives were left behind. Synesyn is designed around a different premise: meaningful future-making requires structure, traceability, participation, and reflection.

The framework supports a form of guided co-creation where AI helps generate possibilities, but human participants remain responsible for interpretation, judgment, and direction. In this sense, Synesyn extends the central question of Forward Remembrance: how can we use generative systems to explore latent futures without surrendering imagination to the default patterns of the machine?

Current Status

Synesyn is an evolving research and development framework. It is not yet a finished public product, but its transition from artistic research tool toward broader public use is being actively tested through Metapunkt, NTNU Discovery-supported development, and structured pilot applications.

Project: Synesyn Framework
Research context: Forward Remembrance: Exploring Latent Utopias
Developed by: Ayodele Arigbabu
Institutional context: Trondheim Academy of Fine Art, NTNU
Supported development: NTNU Discovery pilot
Use areas: Artistic research, foresight, scenario-making, workshops, generative theatre, public engagement, and collaborative imagination