To kick off their research project The Futurology of Cooperation, Anna Czapski & Diederik Peeters invited Maja Kuzmanovic to give a lecture and lead a workshop, introducing and contextualising the art and science of futurology. You can read the full text of the lecture here.

The complex uncertainties of our times make engaging with futures increasingly challenging. What could encourage proactive engagement with these challenges? How can we learn to act in the present from the vantage point of possible futures? The various approaches to uncertainty found across the arts, design and futures studies offer some starting points. Speculative design and experiential futures point to tangible explorations of the possible, where “what if?” questions can be “pre-enacted” as experimental situations in the present. Where futures are iteratively imagined, tested, adapted and integrated into everyday experiences, as a continuous refinement of living in the long now.

Maja Kuzmanovic is a transdisciplinary artist, experience designer, writer, speaker and process facilitator with a fondness for contemplation, cultivation and futurecrafting. Maja is the co-founder of FoAM, a network of labs for speculative culture. She is currently active through FoAM Earth, a nomadic entity exploring futures as a way of re-enchanting the present.