This is a card game designed to stimulate new ways of thinking and acting. Each card contains one tactic.
How to Play:
- Hold the deck of cards in your hands.
- Shuffle the deck thoroughly. Remember, there’s no order without chaos, so embrace the chaos.
- Draw one card at a time and follow the tactic written on it.
About the Tactics:
- Tactics are quick interventions meant to trigger new modes of doing, thinking, relating, and acting.
- They are not meant to solve problems directly but to serve as tools for discovery.
- By using these tactics, you can explore new ways of understanding and interacting with the world, allowing new perspectives and languages to emerge in your sensory experience.
- Unlike strategies, which offer long-term solutions, tactics are immediate and adaptive.
Tactic 001. TASTE
Lick a flower. Take an image.
Tactic 002. SMELL
Go out. Follow someone whose perfume you like until another scent crosses your path. Stop. Open Google maps, take a screenshot of your current location. Draw a blue line from the starting point to the end point of your smell journey and a red line from the starting point to your initial destination. The blue line is your scent diversion.
Tactic 003. TOUCH
Take a selfie using your big toe as your index finger.
Tactic 004. SOUND
Talk into your phone, take a selfie.
Tactic 005. TASTE
Put an object on your tongue. Imagine it tastes like a shell.
Tactic 006. SMELL
Enter a space. Try to distinguish the specific odour of the place. Count the time until you experience olfactory fatigue (until the smell is no longer perceptible). Write down a description of the odour and its duration.
Tactic 007. TOUCH
Sit on a ledge. It could be at the harbour or the landing of a stairway with your legs dangling out. Take off your shoes. Lie on your back. Close your eyes. Feel the wind on the soles of your feet.
Tactic 008. SOUND
Close your eyes. Start to filter through the sounds in your space beginning with the closest, probably your breath, all the way through distance and try to identify the furthest away.
Tactic 009. TASTE
List two desires with a pencil. Lick them until they disappear from the page. Take an image of the erased drawing.
Tactic 010. SMELL
Enter a place. Try to focus on its smell. Is it a usual odour? If not, could you guess what happened in that place before you got in?
Tactic 011. TOUCH
Sit next to a friend. Nearly touching but not quite. A small gap must remain between you. Close your eyes. Feel the warmth.
Tactic 012. SOUND
Listen to a new piece of music, draw a picture or write a sentence.
Tactic 013. TASTE
Do tongue gymnastics. Memorise the workout routine.
Tactic 014. SMELL
Taste the aroma of the future.
Tactic 015. TOUCH
Undress. Roll 9 times on the floor ending on your front. Take a break counting to 60. Roll again 9 times ending on your back. Remain in this position until you have taken the most important decision in your life.
Tactic 016. SOUND
You don’t listen to the wind on the trees unless you want to.
Tactic 017. TASTE
Eat chocolate or drink coffee. Spit into a piece of paper. Let it dry. Read your future.
Tactic 018. SMELL
Take a walk and collect different natural items (leaves, flowers, bark). When you return home, crush each item and take note of the scent released. Arrange the items in order of scent intensity and take a photo.
Tactic 019. TOUCH
Sit opposite a friend and close your eyes. Place your hands on their body, whilst they place their hands on your body. Take as long as you like to form an image or sentences within your minds eye of the space that exist between you. The space that defines your friendship. Without opening your eyes take turns in describing your image. Finally open your eyes.
Tactic 020. SOUND
Play nothing on your (noise cancelling) headphones, walk around outside and sing your favourite song. Feel the vibrations, tap out the rhythm. Save it and use it.
Tactic 021. TASTE
Choose a concept you’ve never tried before. Taste it. Write a detailed review, focusing on the flavours, textures, and aromas.
Tactic 022. TASTE
Savour the future.
Tactic 023. TOUCH
On a rainy day, go outside. Stand still in the rain for as long as you want.
Tactic 024. SOUND
Listen to the tone of the future.
Tactic 025. TASTE
Create an imaginary recipe using only ingredients from your walk back home. Speculate what it would taste like.
Tactic 026. SMELL
Reflect: do we have an appropriate vocabulary for describing smell? If the answer is no, make a list of words that could be used for that matter.
Tactic 027. TOUCH
Use different parts of your body (elbow, knee, cheek) to explore the textures of common household items. Take notes on how the experience differs from using your hands.
Tactic 028. SOUND
Eavesdrop on conversations as you travel about, add your own narrative embellishments later.
Tactic 029. TASTE
Taste an inedible cold object (a metal spoon, the tap of the sink). Try to figure out if the temperature has a taste.
Tactic 030. SMELL
Spend a day trying to identify the underlying scents in all the products you use (soap, shampoo, laundry detergent). Create a scent diary documenting your findings.
Tactic 031. TOUCH
Touch the texture of the future.
Tactic 032. SOUND
Let a sound wrap around you, how does it feel – is it warm , cold, scary, annoying? How?
Tactic 033. TASTE
Have a conversation with someone. Try to think what the taste of the conversation was.
Tactic 034. SMELL
Walk around your neighbourhood at different times of the day. Note the changes in the scents you encounter. Write a short narrative about the journey of smells over a 24-hour period.
Tactic 035. TOUCH
Go to a playground and enter the sandpit. Walk around. Allow the sand to enter shoes, socks. What memories appear?
Tactic 036. SOUND
Listen to white noise or nature sounds for 10 minutes. Write about any mental images or memories that the sounds evoke.
Tactic 037. TASTE
Touch your tongue with your fingers. Use your fingers to taste your organs.
Tactic 038. SMELL
Sit in a crowded place. Close your eyes and try to identify the different smells around you. Open your eyes and sketch a map of the space, annotating it with the scents you identified and their locations.
Tactic 039. TOUCH
Use clay or playdough or bread dough or any similar material to create a sculpture while blindfolded. Afterward, examine your creation with your eyes open and write about the differences between the tactile and visual experiences.
Tactic 040. SOUND
Choose a word and repeat it aloud for five minutes. Pay attention to how the sound changes, try to understand what the word means now.
Tactic 041. TASTE
Cook a dish using only ingredients that start with the same letter. Don’t taste it. Give it to someone else.
Tactic 042. SMELL
Make a list of smells that attract you in an inconfessable way. Send it to someone anonymously.
Tactic 043. TOUCH
Lie in your bed. Let your fingers travel to the edge of the bed with eyes closed, perhaps even blindfolded. You might have to crawl or bend. Once you are sure of where the perimeter of the bed is. You lie with your head in the foot end and take a nap. When you awake, write down your dreams.
Tactic 044. SOUND
Instead of taking photos, take sound recordings. Use them to remember those moments, notice how they look in your mind.
Tactic 045. TASTE
Create a flavour wheel just using your bed. Use all flavour profiles (sweet, salty, bitter, sour, umami).
Tactic 046. SMELL
Make a list of things that smell like new. Make another list of things that smell like old. In between you’ve got the passing of time.
Tactic 047. TOUCH
Spend an hour touching objects with only the backs of your hands. Write about how this changes your perception of their textures.
Tactic 048. SOUND
Create a playlist of songs that take you on a journey. Listen to it whilst you lie still, close your eyes, find out where you go.
Tactic 049. TASTE
Choose a colour and only eat foods of that colour for a day.
Tactic 050. SMELL
Think of the smells of your childhood. Travel there. Close your eyes and describe the places where you are now.
Tactic 051. TOUCH
Collect a paint burch, a wooden spoon, a tea strainer, a fork, a tooth brush, a feather, a tea towel, some cotton wool, a spatula to touch your skin. Write about the different sensations each tool creates and how they make you feel.
[The cards of Tactic 014. SMELL Taste the aroma of the future. Tactic 022. TASTE Savour the future., Tactic 024. SOUND Listen to the tone of the future, and Tactic 031. TOUCH Touch the texture of the future. should have an inverted colour different to the rest, as if they were the “wildcard”.]
