Velcro City Tourist Board

Category: Futures

  • futures of digital work in a fortnight from now

    At 8am on Tuesday 27th February, MediaEvolution Malmö are launching the book which is the result of their latest community foresight cycle, which took as its topic “the futures of digital work”. The book contains five fictions by yours truly—storified versions of the five scenarios that the core contributors came up with across four days…

  • a pattern we are doomed to repeat

    Dave Karpf is doing sterling work on what we might call the uppermost archaeological layer of paleofutures—to the extent that the various vague plans I had to write more in this direction have been shelved pretty much permanently. Leave it to the person with the headstart and the bit between their teeth, you know? There…

  • structure [and/of] structurelessness

    I am thinking a lot right now about my work: what it is, certainly, but also what it’s for—where it fits not only in the now, but in times to come. Given that my work is focussed on futurity, this meta-level thinking frequently falls out of and/or collapses back into the more day to day…

  • who are you trying to impress? McDonald’s Hopeland and skiffy diasporae

    It’s yer man ADH, who else? “Space is dead”, sez he: The moon landing happened because capitalism and American empire actually had a rival. These forces had to prove they could outrace, outplan, and outspend communism and Soviet empire. It was probably the biggest PR campaign of all time, if you don’t count our bloated…

  • a mixture of Vatican clergy and the Wizard of Oz: on hype, strategy, and postmodernity

    Don’t tell my mother I said this*, but as time goes by I’ve really come to appreciate the value of paying attention to the experience of old hands. Exhibit A comes with what I will gladly concede is a hefty slice of self-aggrandisement. Rodney Brooks has been working with robots and autonomous vehicles for almost…