Stay ConnectedThe Near Future Laboratory Podcast is conversations at the vanguard of design, technology, futures, and culture, hosted by Julian Bleecker — founder of the Near Future Laboratory.
https://nearfuturelaboratory.com
https://julianbleecker.com
Support this podcast at https://www.patreon.com/nearfuturelaboratory
Copyright: © Julian Bleecker
General Seminar N°14 was on Web3!
Yeah!
What the heck is that anyway??
Well — that's why we have General Seminar; to discuss the things we're somewhat confused about..the things on the edge of meaning. General Seminar. Listen in on some of the outcomes of Seminar and tune in to our design fiction excavations. We started with a simple brief: what is travel in a Web3 universe? What is the refrigerator in a Web3 universe? DISCUSS!
Please support the Near Future Laboratory Podcast over on Patreon — https://patreon.com/nearfuturelaboratory — Your support is very much appreciated and helps me know that you value the effort that goes into producing the show!
Want to find out more about General Seminar? Looking to bring General Seminar into your team or organization to help flex your imagination muscle and be a better futures thinker? Get in touch! https://generalseminar.com
Also, learn more about the Design Fiction mindset and get involved with us! Join the Near Future Laboratory Discord — https://linktr.ee/bleeckerj
Jaymo a/k/a Jay Springett is a writer, podcaster, strategist, currently specializing in the distributed web, metaverse, and world running. He works with individuals and organisations to create cohesive worlds. Hybrid environments made up of people, places, technologies and the cultures they create together. You can find him and his work at thejaymo.net.
Here are some links to some of the material, references, and topics we covered:
Interdependence Ep. 22: This is All Happening Right Now: Solarpunk, cultural fracking and the real Jurassic Park with Jay Springett
“The indifference Engine” (also The Indifference Engine - An Ecological Characterisation of Bitcoin)
Mieke Marple is an artist and writer, and creator of the Medusa Collection, a set of 2,500 unique NFTs on the Ethereum blockchain. It’s a large scale artwork + restorative history + fundraiser that dedicates 25% of all sales to Steven Van Zandt’s national education non-profit TeachRock.org
Mieke and I talk about art, running a traditional art gallery, and her motivations to move to digital and specifically crypto art.
Please consider supporting this podcast over on Patreon or buy me a coffee! Thank you for ranking this podcast, and for your support!
LINKS
[Mieke Marple] (https://miekemarple.com/)
[Medusa Collection] (http://medusacollection.io/)
[Teach Rock] (https://teachrock.org/)
[Become a Patron] (https://www.patreon.com/nearfuturelaboratory)
[Near Future Laboratory Discord]( https://discord.gg/PHbDruNGN5)
A discussion with Nick Foster, Head of Design at X (a/k/a The Moonshot Factory). Please consider supporting this podcast, or if you want — buy me a Coffee! You may also be interested in the Design Fiction Newsletter as well as the Near Future Laboratory Discord, high-signal / low-noise channel discussing design, technoculture, and futures. Thank you for listening! Julian
I had a chance to meet up with Jess Charlesworth and Tim Parsons while they passed through Los Angeles a few weeks ago. It was great to meet them in person after following their work for years now. Their work has been exhibited internationally at some of the most awesome venues and exhibition forums — I suggest you settle in to look at their website, which is a great catalog of their works and their motivating principles.
Parsons & Charlesworth are collaborative artists focusing on the objects and habits of humankind. Their inventive sculptural practice relies upon creating objects that allow us to examine our future selves and perhaps navigate better. Utilizing sculpture, objects, narrative writing and photography, their work addresses key social, ecological and technological challenges of our time, including climate change and the future of work.
Please consider supporting this podcast, or if you want — buy me a Coffee! You may also be interested in the Design Fiction Newsletter as well as the Near Future Laboratory Discord, high-signal / low-noise channel discussing design, technoculture, and futures.
Thank you for listening!
Julian
This is a special episode of the Near Future Laboratory Podcast — an annotated highlight reel from our General Seminar N°10 — a discussion on CRYPTO GAMES. You can find out more about this General Seminar here: https://generalseminar.com/general-seminar-no-10.)
Yeah. CRYPTO GAMING. That’s like..games and blockchains, right? Or pay-to-play-to-earn, as I’ve heard it referred to? Or is it, like..being able to take your broadsword from Fortnite into Call of Duty or something?
Listen along to General Seminar N°10 with hosts Julian Bleecker, Katie Dreke, and Ian Bogost and our 16 participants.
Please consider supporting this podcast! You can do so at https://patreon.com/nearfuturelaboratory or you can buy me a Coffee here:https://ko-fi.com/bleeckerj! You can also send $ETH to https://bleecker.eth.
(Oh, also— I mention in my introduction that something really unsettling happened when I was producing this episode and I refer to a tweet — it's this one here — https://twitter.com/slavin_fpo/status/1449455253670309895)
Sarah Friend studied painting as a fine artist and is now one of the more audacious media artists. Her art projects probe the contours of possible kinds of social relations built on top of blockchain mechanics, inspired and shaped by her interest in science-fiction and futures. Sarah's medium is software, her canvas is the blockchain, and her paintbrushes non-fungible tokens and Solidity contracts. He project Lifeforms and Off are especially evocative, pushing into the near future of how cryptodynamics and blockchain architecture can operate as instruments and expressive media.
Please consider supporting this podcast. You can do so at https://patreon.com/nearfuturelaboratory or by buying me a coffee at https://ko-fi.com/bleeckerj. You can also send crypto here to me directly at bleecker.eth
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Some links to Sarah Friend's work
https://twitter.com/isthisanart_
https://lifeforms.supply/about
Extracting Computerized Desires — A Review of Clickmine
Near Future Laboratory Discord: https://discord.com/invite/j7DggW2ahj
Design Fiction Newsletter: https://buttondown.email/designfiction
This is a special episode of the Near Future Laboratory Podcast — a highlight reel from our General Seminar N°9 — a discussion on Synthetic Brands / Synthetic Media. We are now nudging into a world in which algorithmically synthetic and computer-generated artificial entities will likely be participating, collaborating, and fully assuming roles up and down the culture stack — from customer care bots to pop-stars and politicians. How do we make sense of all this?
General Seminar is a platform for sense-making through discussion.
One-to-many “expert” platforms like podcasts, TED Talks, and Masterclasses serve a role in the dissemination of ideas and opinions of a small group of experts. By their nature these are largely one-way, where ideas flow to a mostly passive audience who still must make sense of the topic on their own.
General Seminar provides an alternative. Sign up to be notified of future General Seminar sessions.
This podcast is supported by the good graces of my patron's on Patreon. Please consider supporting this podcast and my Design Fiction Newsletter! Or, you can buy me a coffee to show your thanks!
Patrick Tanguay is a Generalist, Synthesist, and Curator. He explores tech in society, signals of change, & prospective futures in his fantastic weekly newsletter Sentiers, which I recommend you subscribe to. Every Sunday I get a host of fantastic insights and pointers, one of the most interesting is his mentioning the most clicked story a year ago. This morning it was a great piece from last year — the somewhat manifesto-y article on Squad Wealth, some themes we discuss in this podcast. You can also find Patrick on Twitter at @inevernu
Please consider supporting this podcast on Patreon — doing so helps cover the costs of maintaining the various nozzles and nodes necessary to produce the podcast, plus maybe more than that — it shows that you support the effort that goes into this work. You can also buy me a "coffee" as a kind of tip for the effort.
If you like the topics in and around this discussion, please consider signing up for General Seminar — it's my new experimental platform for conversations using the seminar framework to have several-to-several conversations in which everyone has a voice.
Patrick has been a web developer for 15 plus years, and co-founded the first coworking space in Montréal, Station C, and co-initiated the critically acclaimed print magazine The Alpine Review. Over the years he also helped start a number of groups bringing people and ideas together: The Awesome Foundation Montréal, Webcamp, Creative Mornings Montréal, and Hacks/Hackers Montréal. Back in the day he was steward of the oldest and longest running blogger meetup, Yulblog.
Alexandra Deschamps-Sonsino is an author, consultant, public speaker, entrepreneur and designer living in London.
She is the author of Creating a Culture of Innovation and Smarter Homes
She is the founder of the Low Carbon Design Institute, a residency for creative people focused on climate change.
She was named 1st in a list of 100 Internet of Things Influencers (Postscapes, 2016), 2nd in Top 100 Internet of Things Thought Leaders (Onalytica, 2014) and in the Top 100 Influential Tech Women on Twitter (Business Insider, 2014). She’s been included in the long-list of Computer Weekly’s Most Influential Women in Tech in the UK in 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020 and 2021.
She studied industrial design at the University of Montreal and interaction design at the Interaction Design Institute Ivrea.
You can find her work at designswarm
Please support this podcast, which you can do at patreon.com/nearfuturelaboratory. You can also buy me a coffee!
You may also be interested in the Design Fiction newsletter, a somewhat weekly newsletter on topics related to design, innovation, culture and technology. As well, we have a new platform for sense-making called General Seminar. New sessions are in the planning phase. Sign up there to be notified of upcoming seminars on Augmented Reality, the Metaverse, and Design Fiction.
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