When bringing possible futures to life and engaging an audience, many tend to resort to multimedia in its most tech-inspired/driven variant, while from a storytelling perspective “the art of acting” or theatre has so much more to offer. After some first experiences of our own in using theater as a way of communicating the future and triggering debate, we are definitely hungry for more. Yet our interest in theater goes beyond its utilitarian value in exploring and envisioning the future.

Theatre comes in many flavours and the Dutch theater company Theater AdHoc defies categorization in a lovely way. Join us on an inspiring trip through the mind and heart of its founder Jan van den Berg.

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At the recent LIFT conference in Geneva, Patrick J. Gyger, director of La Maison d’Ailleurs – the museum of science fiction, utopias and extraordinary voyages – in Yverdon-les-Bains, Switzerland, took us on an inspiring trip through the history of the future. Patrick is a historian specialized in medieval studies with a huge appetite for the way people envision  possible future worlds. Among many other things, Patrick was one of the co-managers of the European Space Agency’s study on Innovative Technologies from Science Fiction for Space Applications – a research and educational project looking into science fiction to find ideas for space engineers.

We invited Patrick to join us for an interview and share with us some of his thoughts on the way in which people envision the future.  Enjoy!

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Futures, experiences, design … three core ingredients of what Pantopicon is all about. Three topics, each situated on a crossroads of disciplines. It is in this context that we are pleased to share with you our latest interview: an inspiring chat with Nathan Shedroff, chair of the Design Strategy MBA programme at CCA, information designer, experience strategist, author of “Experience Design“ and “Making meaning“, and many more things. What do futures studies & design have in common? How does he look at the power of experiences as catalysts for communication and learning? What are his views on the role of design in our current and possible future societies? 

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Change often starts with a ripple before it turns into a wave washing over us. Spotting signals of change early – when they are still murmur on the sideline – often means a strategic advantage, if one can interpret the signal correctly, anticipate and act upon it successfully.

We dive into the world of weak signals together with Elina Hiltunen, a Finnish weak signals hunter and discuss both theory and practice in this fascinating realm of futures studies.

Elina was also one of the keynote speakers at the European Futurists Conference in Lucerne last October. (more…)

A while ago, we highlighted Tom Klinkowstein and Irene Pereyra‘s fascinating project depicting a day in the life of a networked designer’s smart things or a day in a designer’s networked smart things, 2030. The future, design, technology, a fascinating approach … more than enough good ingredients for an even better interview with both designers.

Enjoy!

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Since the beginning, we wanted ‘a thousand tomorrows‘ not only to point to future-related happenings out there in the world, but also to dig into the minds of people at the forefront of developments which are redefining our future or have the potential to do so. Via interview sessions we would like to share with you a look through their eyes into today’s and tomorrow’s possible world(s). In our first interview, we’ll take a closer look into the fascinating peer-to-peer (r)evolution, together with Michel Bauwens.

Michel is a versatile man: innovator, editor, philosopher, serial entrepreneur, filmmaker (together with Frank Theys he made a 3 hour TV-documentary titled: “Technocalyps: the metaphysics of technology and the end of man” ), … A few years ago he left his home country Belgium and now lives in Chiang Mai, Thailand. He is the founder of the Foundation for Peer to Peer Alternatives, which researches, documents and promotes p2p practices.
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