Future as (Creative) Practice. Hosted by HOLO
American science-fiction luminary Frederik Pohl once quipped ‘‘a good science fiction story should be able to predict not the automobile but the traffic jam.’’ He knew that more than engineering feats and scientific breakthroughs, it is unknown unknowns - inherent blind spots and unintended consequences - that define the future, and that every inch of progress comes with greater risk.
Case in point: a raging pandemic, an out-of-control climate crisis, 24/7 corporate surveillance, and skyrocketing inequality. How can we imagine better, more robust futures in times of volatile complexity and rapid change? What tools and methodologies are available to us to improve our foresight and help us think outside the box?
This panel gathers experts who imagine futures as part of their creative practice. With knowledge spanning social justice, architecture, experimental film, and science fiction, they’ll share insights on how preferable futures can be modeled and why narrative and world-building are effective forms of cultural critique.
Ingrid LaFleur
Ingrid LaFleur is a curator, artist, pleasure activist, and Afrofuturist.
Her mission is to ensure equal distribution of the future, exploring the frontiers of social justice through new technologies, economies, and modes of government. LaFleur is the founder of The Afrofuture Strategies Institute, which implements Afrofuturist foresight and approaches to empower Black bodies and oppressed communities.
As a thought leader, social justice technologist, public speaker, and cultural producer she has led conversations and workshops at Centre Pompidou (Paris), TEDxBrooklyn, TEDxDetroit, Ideas City, New Museum (New York), Harvard University and Oxford University, among others. LaFleur is also the host of the podcast Decolonize Your Destiny and the video series What Does The Afrofuture Say?
Tim Maughan
Author and journalist using both fiction and non-fiction to explore issues around cities, class, culture, technology, and the future. His work regularly appears on the BBC, New Scientist, and Vice/Motherboard.
His debut novel Infinite Detail was published by FSG in 2019, and selected by The Guardian as their Science Fiction and Fantasy book of the year and shortlisted for the Locus Magazine Award for Best First Novel. He also collaborates with artists and filmmakers, and has had work shown at the V&A, Columbia School of Architecture, the Vienna Biennale, and on Channel 4. He currently lives in Canada.
Jorge Camacho
Strategic designer, foresight strategist, researcher and lecturer.
He works as a research affiliate at the Institute for the Future and is the co-founder of Diagonal: a research, design, and futures studio based in Mexico City. He is also a board member of Plurality University Network (U+) and collaborates with the editorial board of World Futures Review.Jorge studied an MA Cybernetic Culture and a Ph.D. in Cultural Studies at the University of East London. As a researcher and lecturer, he’s interested in design practices that aim to drive social change such as design futures, systemic design, and transition design. He currently teaches systems and futures thinking at the MA Design Studies and the Design of Tomorrow postgraduate diploma at CENTRO and the MA Strategic Design and Innovation at IBERO, Ciudad de México.
He’s lectured at Academia Mexicana de Creatividad, EGADE Business School, ISDI, and h2i institute (Madrid).He has worked as creative director, strategist, and director of innovation at various companies including Flock (currently Isobar Mexico), Google and Uncommon. In those roles, he's led projects in product and service design, as well as strategic foresight, for international companies such as Coca-Cola, Nissan, Ab InBev, Visa, and Gentera, as well as public organizations such as Mexico City’s Laboratorio para la Ciudad.
Liam Young
Speculative architect and director who operates in the spaces between design, fiction and futures.
He is cofounder of Tomorrows Thoughts Today, an urban futures think tank, exploring the local and global implications of new technologies andUnknown Fields, a nomadic research studio that travels on expeditions to chronicle these emerging conditions as they occur on the ground. His worldbuilding for the film and television industries has been acclaimed in both mainstream and architectural media, including the BBC, NBC, Wired, Guardian, Time Magazine and New Scientist, he is a BAFTA nominated producer and his work has been collected by institutions such as the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Victoria and Albert Museum and MAAS in Sydney. He has published several books including the recent Machine Landscapes: Architectures of the Post Anthropocene
Anab Jain
Designer, futurist, filmmaker and educator.
As Co-founder and Director of Superflux, she hopes to realise our vision of the Studio as a new kind of design practice, responsive to the challenges and opportunities of the twenty-first century.Over the last 15 years, Anab has gained international recognition for her work and commentary on design, innovation, emerging technologies and complex futures. She is the recipient of the Award of Excellence ICSID, UNESCO Digital Arts Award, and Grand Prix Geneva Human Rights Festival, as well as awards from Apple and the UK Government’s Innovation Department.
Her work has been exhibited at MoMA New York, V&A Museum, Science Gallery Dublin, National Museum of China, Vitra Design Museum, and Tate Modern.Anab has delivered talks and keynotes at several conferences including TED, MIT Media Lab and MOMA’s first design summit ‘Knotty Objects’, PICNIC, NEXT, WCIT2010, LIFT, SIGGRAPH, Global Design Forum, EPIC, Design Engaged and FuturEverything. Recent talks include Why We Need to Imagine Different Futures, More Than-Human Centered Design, Design for the New Normal, Valley of the Meatpuppets and How Will We Live. In addition, Anab was appointed Professor at the University of Applied Arts in Vienna in 2016, where she leads the Design Investigations (ID2) Program.
