4017 Enacted offered an opportunity to examine what Europe in all its contemporary complexity could mean in the future. We were interested in the role that technology, and an increasing significance of data and connectivity relates to issues of citizenship and borders and their possible effects on nation states and continents. We were also particularly interested and excited about the possible role of cultural spaces how especially museums as public spaces, and the artifacts they house and host can frame the discussion. The museum as a shared civic space offers an opening in this respect as a possible place for sharing, learning and testing ideas. Collectively we were keen to foreground how design can function as a way of gathering and collecting information and ideas, and then presenting and engaging with these directly with an audience or public, almost like a form of design journalism. We began by asking the following questions: What if in the future: Data flows defined citizenship? Could individuals have more than one citizenship? Or, what if borders were constantly updated? ‘4017 Enacted’ propositionally declared the V&A and Stuttgart Theatre Festival as new types of cultural extraterritorial space, defined by constantly updating borders and novel forms of citizenship. Framed as an alternative guided tour through the medieval and renaissance galleries, the project translates and tests some of these ideas within these spaces. The heightened use of texts and slogans in the project acts as a way of introducing specific ideas from our research especially in relation to current political debates and rhetoric within Europe and beyond. 
It is very clear that we are at a watershed moment now, both politically and technologically. The utopian positivism from the early internet era perhaps seems a little faded and at times naive. Some of the themes raised in the project reference this moment, for example, tour guides in ‘4017 Enacted’ where clothing with the slogan ‘Post Truth Guide’ and are encouraged to tell fabricated stories about some of the content in the V&A. Additionally, much of the political discourse at the moment is focused on separation or isolation. Closing yourself off or going backwards isn't a positive solution, nor one, which is even achievable. Instead we will need to learn and foreground new ways of being and alternatives to some of the issues and opportunities that technology draws to the surface. The role of the designer in these times will be crucial, not only in developing the next app or service, but in problematizing and presenting some of the implications and repercussions of these developments. The V&A and other cultural institutions can and perhaps should play a major role in fostering a more critical awareness around citizenship and technology. The project was widely published with a broadcast on Front Row, BBC Radio 4 and features in the Washington Post and numerous articles in print, web and radio.