What is Radical Futures? | Spring 2019

Listen in to the introduction of the Radical Futures project, presented as an interview with project Co-Leads Damian Arteca and Prof. Ollivier Dyens. Ollivier details the history and founding of McGill University’s Building 21, and the motivation behind the Radical Futures initiative, inspired by a desire to re-invent the way in which we interact with the future. Through guided discussion with students, faculty, and visiting scholars, as well as multimedia productions, Radical Futures aims to re-imagine the future not as a static ground towards which we fall, but rather as a field of potential constrained only by our modes of thought and action.  

‍

‍

Who are the Creators of the Future?

The Radical Futures Project, conceived in the Spring of 2019 at McGill University's Building 21, seeks to explore what it means to alter the means by which we may imagine the future. This two-part podcast episode recounts the activities of the project, including interviews with science fiction writers, scientists, philosophers, anthropologists and philanthropists; creative writing exercises; and an exploratory seminar that was ultimately interrupted by the ultimate Radical Injunction: the global pandemic which has arguably altered our relation to the future forever. As a retrospective piece, this broadcast traces a through-line across the project's myriad voices and formats. Voices include Damian Arteca, Ollivier Dyens, Jonathan Ledgard, Alexander Weinstein, Ed Finn, Amit Ben-Eliyahu, David 'Jhave' Johnston, Rebecca Brosseau and Khando Langri.

‍

Episode 1

‍

Episode 2

‍

What are the foundational pillars that would hold up against the challenges of the future? | Summer 2022

What are the conditions we must create for humanity to change and find balance? How can we ensure that multiplicity, autonomy, beauty, ingenuity, foresight, insight, and wisdom permeate human actions, social interventions, political decisions, and education, to allow for solutions to be implemented, and for a better world to take shape in the future?

How can they be applied to specific problems and challenges we face?

‍

The Summer 2022 BLUE cohort is tasked with collaboratively coming up with a framework that could guide future generations of scholars in conceptualizing and building a brighter future.

‍

Scholars: Émile Chamberland, Josh Weinstein, Nakiya Noorbhai, Sumali Mehta, Wei Xu, Yunjie Zhang, Zirui Li

Supporting Staff: Claudia Raihert, Darius Valevicius, Viola Ruzzier

‍

Reinvention | Winter 2022

Reinvention will not explore solutions, since solutions already exist. Instead, it will ask: what are the conditions we must create for humanity to change and find balance? How can we ensure that multiplicity, autonomy, beauty, ingenuity, foresight, insight, and wisdom permeate human actions, social interventions, political decisions, and education, to allow for solutions to be implemented, and for a better world to take shape in the future?

‍

Episode 1

‍

Episode 2