Speakers will discuss topics including the shifting roles and dynamics of terrorism and counter-terrorism, the growing threat of cyberattacks, emergency management preparedness, public health preparedness, and inter-agency cooperation. On these issues and more, what can we learn from the past, and what might we learn from the future?
I’ll be drawing on the superlative work of John Parsons and Peter Scoblic, among others, to explore these questions through a foresightful frame.
My new essay, “A Lover’s Quarrel with Time“, is out today at Vector, the journal of the British Science Fiction Association.
It takes Solvej Balle’s literary series On The Calculation of Volume, about a woman trapped in an eternally repeating day, as the basis for a wider-ranging discussion about our perception of time, and its depiction in fiction, in an era of crisis and turbulence.
I’m very pleased to be back at the University of Oslo next month to contribute to the humAIn initiative, a hub for interdisciplinary research and education which focuses on how the humanities can critically and creatively engage with the ideas, stories, and imaginaries of AI.
Can we gain the benefit of hindsight even when it’s not clear what the future holds?
My visiting fellowship at the University of Galway concludes with the launch of an accessible structured process for thinking your way beyond current hopes, fears, and assumptions – then finding new standpoints from which to evaluate your decisions.
We explore how scenario work can support research into global challenges, and reflect on the ethical use of foresight when dealing with issues affecting the whole planet.
I also ran a workshop with Oxford colleague Halina Suwalowska for the Old Fire Station in Oxford. This is an arts centre in the heart of the city “which takes a risk and entertains”, with the motto, “Art is for everyone. Art has potential.”
The Old Fire Station’s tower is Oxford’s “Hidden Spire”, almost concealed by the collegiate skyline, and this has lent its name to an artmaking collective.
The Hidden Spire project brings together people from different walks of life; many have experience of homelessness, having initially come to the Old Fire Station through the homeless charity Crisis.
The Collective work together to make publicly shared artworks, always deciding collaboratively what they make through a process of co-creation.
Halina and I worked with the artists to look at the future of Oxford, beyond hopes, fears, and expectations – exploring the city of 2041 as a contribution to this year’s forthcoming public artwork.
It’s a deep dive into the Peat Hub Ireland project—a major synthesis of two decades of peatland research that culminated in the Peatlands 2050 Scenarios.
Nataliya Kosmyna, Maria Melchior, and Sylvie Delacroix on a panel discussion about interacting with LLMs
The best bits were the difficult ones – the little moments of tension and conflict which poked through the collegiality and cordiality and even the impeccable Parisian hospitality.
In Limn magazine, Oxford’s Javier Lezaun writes of mesocosms: experimental devices which allow us to observe natural interactions in a bounded and partially enclosed environment.
Specifically, Lezaun writes about polyurethane bags, mounted on hexagonal frames, which float in Taliarte harbour, on the east coast of the German island of Kiel.
Filled with water from the North Atlantic, the four-metre-long bags are used to determine how plankton responds when alkaline materials are added to seawater. Each bag contains a different quantity of sodium carbonate and sodium bicarbonate, so that different levels of alkalinity can be compared.
