STREAM: IoA Sliver Lecture – Anab Jain

Anab Jain
Institute of Architecture

Zoom Meeting
https://zoom.us/j/138352666

Anab Jain is a filmmaker, designer and futurist. She is the co-founder of Superflux, an experimental design, foresight and technology studio in London, UK working for clients and commissioners such as V&A, Google, Red Cross, UNDP, BBC and many more. Anab is also Professor and Programme Leader for Design Investigations at the University of Applied Arts, Vienna.

Her work can be found at www.superflux.in

Greater Futures

Almost all challenges societies around the globe face today are complex, interconnected and placed in a rapidly changing environment. The rhetoric about what is to come is swinging between utopia and dystopia, between nostalgia and techno-utopias. The only fact about the future is that it is inevitable.

The grandfathers of futurism, the Italian Futurists, showed that the future is not only a domain of time but also of ideology. Subsequently the fathers of futures studies developed principles on how to study the future. Hence, according to futures studies scholar Jim Dator: “The future cannot be ‘predicted’ but alternative futures can be ‘forecasted’ and preferred futures ‘envisioned’ and ‘invented’- continuously.” (Dator, 1996)

Yet, the world as it is has its own impact on the future and according to another futures studies scholar Ziauddin Sardar the relevance of futures studies resides within the present. According to Sadar the value of change in people’s perceptions and motivations, channeled into an evolution of present values and immediate action, can only be judged within its present or immediate future.

Looking at design proposing bigger technological and cultural innovations the lecture series gathers thoughts and approaches also inspiring for the discipline of architecture, aiming for a greater world after tomorrow.