Summer Wrap-Up
Extracurriculars
This week I’m starting classes again (coming soon to this newsletter!), so I’m bringing my summer series to a close. I wasn’t sure when I started that I’d be able to keep up with weekly posts, and sometimes I was working on two or three things at once, but overall I really enjoyed the process of taking ambient cultural images of the future and tying them to the concepts in the field of Futures and Foresight. Here’s a summary of what was covered - now’s a good time to catch up on anything you missed:
Books
Stealing Worlds by Karl Schroeder
Parable of the Sower by Octavia Butler
Parable of the Talents by Octavia Butler and The Light Pirate by Lily Brooks-Dalton
Art/Design
Mystery Flesh Pit National Park by Trevor Roberts
This is the Future by Hito Steyerl and Bodytalk by Simo Vassinen, Maria F. Scaroni, Roope Mokka
Film
I, Robot (2004), I Am Mother (2019), Alita: Battle Angel (2019), and (very briefly) Robots (2023)
Television
Games
Four Ways to Die in the Future
I also fit in a great interview with Professor John Sweeney from the Houston program about the lack of a “front door” to Futures, the overlap between Futures and religion, and other topics.
I’m deeply grateful to the creators of all these works for the intellectual exercise, and to you readers who are here to share this journey with me - there are 40 of us now!