Near Future Laboratory Podcast

Julian Montague is an artist, designer, and illustrator. I first came across his work through his Instagram feed, where he occasionally features 'faux books, posters and record album covers. The playful nature of these speculations caught my attention, as well as the way they speculated, of course. It resonates with my own interests in uses of fiction in design specifically, and not just as an idi...

This episode of the Near Future Laboratory is an after action report with Camille MacRae about her experience of life on Mars . Mars College is an educational program, R&D lab, and off-grid residential community dedicated to cultivating a low-cost, high-tech lifestyle, and Camille spent 3 months there in the desert earlier this year and took a few minutes to share her experience. You can read...

Andrew Dana Hudson is an speculative fiction writer, researcher, futurist who's novel ' Our Shared Storm: A Novel of Five Climate Futures ' was just published. We get into a range of topics around ways of imagining possible futures, particularly around wicked and super-wicked problems where there are often no clear solutions, something he works through in 'Our Shared Storm'. Please consider suppor...

This is a special episode of the Near Future Laboratory Podcast — a digest of General Seminar 20 which was on the topic of "METALABELS". So this episode consists of excerpts from that seminar, along with some commentary for context. Thanks to all the wonderful participants from that session! Some links mentioned: https://www.thecut.com/2022/02/a-vibe-shift-is-coming.html https://newsletters.t...

My guest Distinguished Professor Genevieve Bell, AO FAHA FTSE is an Australian anthropologist best known for her work at the intersection of cultural practice and technological development. She taught Anthropology at Stanford before being recruited to Intel in 1998 to build out their social-science research program in their advanced R&D labs. There, Bell and colleagues helped orient Intel to a...

Please support this podcast over on Patreon ! You can also support me by rating and writing a review over on Apple Podcasts . Thanks! This is a Special Bulletin from the Near Future Laboratory on a report that Michelle Kasprzak shared in our NFLPRO Discord that was commissioned and funded by by the Government of Canada, specifically Canadian Heritage. Titled " Decrypting the Medium: A Report on th...

Originally I wanted to have Yancey Strickler as a guest to discuss his book This Could Be Our Future: A Manifesto for a More Generous World , after I read it last spring. A year has passed since I thought it would be fun to have Yancey on and in that time he created something called Metalabel , and that was equally interesting and maybe more so because I've been actively working on various social...

 This is the second in a series of conversations with people operating in the foresight/futures arena — Futurists Talking To Futurists. J. Paul Neeley is a speculative designer and service designer. He teaches at the Royal College of Art in the service design course. His work explores the social, cultural, economic, and ethical implications of emerging technologies, designing speculative futu...

My guests in this episode are the design practice known as Dunne & Raby , Anthony Dunne and Fiona Raby. They continue to be pioneers at the vanguard of design practice with a particular emphasis on speculative design, and the use of design as a medium to stimulate discussion and debate amongst designers, industry and the public about the social, cultural and ethical implications of existing an...

This is a special episode of the Near Future Laboratory Podcast — a digest of General Seminar 17 which was on the topic of "Solarpunk". So this episode consists of excerpts from that seminar, along with some commentary for context. Thanks to all the wonderful participants from that session, and especially to our extra special guest participant Andrew Dana Hudson who has a forthcoming book on...

This is the first of what I hope to be a series of conversations with people operating in the foresight/futures arena and I'm calling it Futurists Talking To Futurists. Radha Mistry and I met late last year when her team posted a role in their growing strategic foresight team. I was intrigued by our conversation and asked if she would come on the podcast to talk about her role, experiences, and in...

This is a special episode of the Near Future Laboratory Podcast — a digest of General Seminar 16 which was on the topic of "The Generalist". So this episode consists of excerpts from that seminar, along with some commentary for context. Thanks to all the wonderful participants from that session. Please support the Near Future Laboratory Podcast over on Patreon — https://patreon.com/nearfuture...

Ed Finn is Director at Arizona State University's Center for Science and the Imagination and Associate Professor at the School for the Future of Innovation in Society . In our conversation we wonder through a variety of topics including the nature of the imagination and education, Design Fiction, CSI's work on Climate Futures and Climate Fiction and a whole lot more! Please support this podcast at...

Katie McCrory leads the Life at Home global team at IKEA, where she oversees the production of the annual global Life at Home Report . Katie bought into the principles of Design Fiction, particularly the focus on the "everyday", and commissioned me to work with her team to bring some clarity and acuity to the global research 2021 results with some Design Fiction, ultimately delivered within the Li...

The artist known as DEAFBEEF began an as art project in 2020 at the start of the COVID 19 pandemic and has drawn attention during the 2021 NFT boom. His work experiments with generative practices, minimal and even near-obsolete technology, and creative emergence. Please consider supporting this podcast. You can do so over on https://patreon.com/nearfuturelaboratory. You can also "buy" me a "coffee...

General Seminar N°14 was on Web3!  Yeah!  What the heck is that anyway??  Well — that's why we have General Seminar; to discuss the things we're somewhat confused about..the things on the edge of meaning. General Seminar. Listen in on some of the outcomes of Seminar and tune in to our design fiction excavations. We started with a simple brief: what is travel in a Web3 universe? What...

Jaymo a/k/a Jay Springett is a writer, podcaster, strategist, currently specializing in the distributed web, metaverse, and world running. He works with individuals and organisations to create cohesive worlds. Hybrid environments made up of people, places, technologies and the cultures they create together. You can find him and his work at thejaymo.net . Here are some links to some of the material...

Mieke Marple is an artist and writer, and creator of the Medusa Collection, a set of 2,500 unique NFTs on the Ethereum blockchain. It’s a large scale artwork + restorative history + fundraiser that dedicates 25% of all sales to Steven Van Zandt’s national education non-profit TeachRock.org Mieke and I talk about art, running a traditional art gallery, and her motivations to move to digital and spe...

A discussion with Nick Foster, Head of Design at X (a/k/a The Moonshot Factory). Please consider supporting this podcast, or if you want — buy me a Coffee! You may also be interested in the Design Fiction Newsletter as well as the Near Future Laboratory Discord, high-signal / low-noise channel discussing design, technoculture, and futures. Thank you for listening! Julian

I had a chance to meet up with Jess Charlesworth and Tim Parsons while they passed through Los Angeles a few weeks ago. It was great to meet them in person after following their work for years now. Their work has been exhibited internationally at some of the most awesome venues and exhibition forums — I suggest you settle in to look at their website, which is a great catalog of their works and the...

This is a special episode of the Near Future Laboratory Podcast — an annotated highlight reel from our General Seminar N°10 — a discussion on CRYPTO GAMES. You can find out more about this General Seminar here: https://generalseminar.com/general-seminar-no-10 .) Yeah. CRYPTO GAMING. That’s like..games and blockchains, right? Or pay-to-play-to-earn, as I’ve heard it referred to? Or is it,...

Sarah Friend studied painting as a fine artist and is now one of the more audacious media artists. Her art projects probe the contours of possible kinds of social relations built on top of blockchain mechanics, inspired and shaped by her interest in science-fiction and futures. Sarah's medium is software, her canvas is the blockchain, and her paintbrushes non-fungible tokens and Solidity contracts...

This is a special episode of the Near Future Laboratory Podcast — a highlight reel from our General Seminar N°9 — a discussion on Synthetic Brands / Synthetic Media. We are now nudging into a world in which algorithmically synthetic and computer-generated artificial entities will likely be participating, collaborating, and fully assuming roles up and down the culture stack  — from c...

Patrick Tanguay is a Generalist, Synthesist, and Curator. He explores tech in society, signals of change, & prospective futures in his fantastic weekly newsletter Sentiers , which I recommend you subscribe to. Every Sunday I get a host of fantastic insights and pointers, one of the most interesting is his mentioning the most clicked story a year ago. This morning it was a great piece from last...

Alexandra Deschamps-Sonsino is an author, consultant, public speaker, entrepreneur and designer living in London. She is the author of Creating a Culture of Innovation and Smarter Homes She is the founder of the Low Carbon Design Institute , a residency for creative people focused on climate change. She was named 1st in a list of 100 Internet of Things Influencers (Postscapes, 2016), 2nd in Top 10...