Velcro City Tourist Board

Category: Futures

  • defeat the dread

    Good chewy long-read from Cennydd Bowles, starting with a look at the ongoing situation (and a zinger of an opening line), and building out to a measured and respectful but nonetheless pointed dig at the futures industry: For too long we’ve been serving the wrong goals: helping large multinationals and tech giants accrue more power…

  • the monstering

    Almost a decade ago, I reviewed a book at Futurismic written by someone I’d gotten to know via the blog circuit. Ryan Oakley is a pretty singular character, and Technicolor Ultra Mall was a pretty singular book, too—furiously angry and cynical about the world that capital had made for us. With hindsight, I wonder if…

  • the self-isolation of solutionism

    Via Chairman Bruce comes news that various ongoing driverless car experiments are quietly leaving town while everyone’s busy worrying about other things. If such solutionisms are even a temporary casualty of the pandemic, then we’ve already found a silver lining to this particular cloud… as Sterling notes, it’s likely that the circumstances are providing a…

  • a duplicitous priesthood’s superior knowledge of the technology of light and shadow

    Insightful piece on superhero narratives, magic and transhumanism by Iwan Rhys Morus over at Aeon a few weeks back; collides a bunch of my own long-running obsessions in exciting ways. For instance, technology’s deliberate appropriation of the mask of (stage) magic: During the 19th century, the relationship between technology and divinity took a new turn.…

  • go beyond the injunction of innovation

    An interview with the principals of the Design Friction atelier: When we teach Design Fiction or Speculative Design in schools, as many design educators have certainly heard it before us, there is a common misconception among students about these types of design postures. Since Speculative Design productions aren’t for sale, it would mean there is…