A Crystal Guide Introduction to 'Crystal: Navigating Uncertainty', an edited reader for acting, relating, and hesitating in these uncertain times.
A Green Guide Marking this year's Earth Day with excerpts from 'Green: Multispecies Entanglings', a reader from FoAM's Anarchive.
Crimson Orange Daiquiri The mind wanders, the dog brings wisdom, a sunset awakening. The crimson daiquiri.
Pattern Recognition / Spook Country / Zero History Hip-Deep in the Thick Present #10. Cyberspace has everted.
Viridian & Virescent An ode to viriditas, the greening energy of all life. Mixed by Lowdjo on spring equinox 2023-03-20.
The Materiality of the Immaterial Hip-Deep in the Thick Present #9. The “virtual” is perhaps the most material thing that exists right now. Ask yourself why you never see it.
Hosting in Unruly Situations A conversation with Frank Heckman of The Embassy of the Earth, about hosting the White Mountain Future Search, a Maasai led initiative to regenerate landscapes and livelihoods in the White Mountain (Mt. Kilimanjaro) region in Kenya and Tanzania.
You down with O.P.P.? Hip-Deep in the Thick Present #8. Outside of glassmaking, to talk of a bottleneck is to talk of the point in a system where bandwidth—the capacity of traffic which can be reliably passed through that point—is restricted.
Zoöp & the practice of Zoönomy Zoöp is an organisational model that allows organisations of many kinds to collaborate with nonhuman life.
Packet / Steamer Hip-Deep in the Thick Present #7. We were once promised that the internet would be the end of geography.
Firebreak Banana Bread: An Edible Timeline This is a recipe for bread. A recipe is a form of time travel you can taste. The primary ingredients for this recipe are wheat, bananas, and treenuts. Each ingredient represents a way of eating and being: one each for yesterday, today, and tomorrow.
Ever Given Hip-Deep in the Thick Present #6: Remember how back in the first act of the Covid pandemic, a big ship went and got itself stuck in the Suez Canal?
Calibrating Experiences of the Future Creating written or fabricated artefacts to communicate possible futures is probably the most fun part of working in the futures field. As the final step in a longer process, artefacts often offer the widest latitude to engage the intended audience.
The Effacement of Consequences Hip-Deep in the Thick Present #5. One way of thinking about infrastructure is as a machine for bringing you things from far away without your having to go and fetch them yourself.
Arts Thinking in a VUCA World A call for developing arts-based techniques – combining scientific evidence, technological development, and social dreaming with humility and flow – to create positive visions and support those who are acting on them.
Recovering Experts Dave Griffiths and Maya Weeks discuss everything from transporting Raspberry Pis on Sonic Kayaks to reenvisioning citizen science as a way to distribute research skills beyond academia and affect local policy.
The Thick Present / The Thin Ice Hip-Deep in the Thick Present #4. Working out what the work is is part of the work.
Experiential Dreamscapes One of the more powerful ideas when futuring is not around predicting what will happen, but imagining what might happen.
Breaking the Mochi... Written in the winter darkness of the southern hemisphere, Alkan Chipperfield's musings draw us into moments of infinite vastness and glimmering light. A gentle invocation of daylight's return.
Räucherwerk A sonic Räucherwerk closing circles and scrying paths through the nascent year. Futures written in wisps of smoke.
Voids within Voids In the liminal space between the years, we linger on the edge and gaze into the void. Press play at midnight. Notice how time warps around you.
Gathered and Scattered (Yuletide soundtrack) Ushering in the festive season, Lowdjo and FoAM invite you to grow worlds at the scale of your (dinner) table.
Seed Crystal An emerging soundtrack for FoAM's Anarchive, mixed by Lowdjo on winter solstice 2022-12-21
The Unbearable Lightness of Solarpunk Hip-Deep in the Thick Present #3. Solarpunk is sometimes claimed as a window on the future we could have if we were willing to make it happen. But as with all forms of science fiction, it is better seen as a window on the present.
Exercises in Attentiveness How do you know what you know? These field notes are thoughts in formation with an island that promises isolation yet never fully delivers detachment, where the past refuses to lie dormant in the present.