Data & Society — Future Perfect

event ⋅ July 17 2018

Future Perfect

Curated by Ingrid Burrington

“If the verb tense of the future perfect assumes certain inevitabilities and the tensions of the present moment tend to assume certain doom, then Future Perfect the gathering holds space for edge cases, unexpected outcomes, and life finding a way.”
– Ingrid Burrington, Curator

In June 2017 and 2018, Data & Society brought together individuals from a variety of world-building disciplines—from art and fiction to architecture and science—for “Future Perfect” to explore the uses, abuses, and paradoxes of speculative futures.

Event Summaries

Future as a Foregone Conclusion

Using Speculative Fiction to Challenge Dominant Narratives

On the uses, abuses, and paradoxes of speculative futures

2018 Talks

Never Tell Me The Odds

Rose Eveleth, Dan Bouk, Tamara K. Nopper

Voight-Kampff Tests

Ruha Benjamin, Melissa Gira Grant, Danielle Blunt, Jennifer Hamilton

Where We’re Going, We Don’t Need Roads

Lou Cornum, Darshana Jayemanne, V. Mitch McEwan

2017 Talks

Come With Me If You Want To Live: Speculative Fiction in the Public Interest

Elizabeth Angell, Ava Kofman, Farai Chideya

Life Finds A Way: Bodies, Futures, Embodied Futures

Ruha Benjamin, Joanna Radin, Ada Cable

In The Off-World Colonies: Speculation and Worldbuilding as Landscape

Deji Bryce Olukotun, Jillian Crandall, Alexander Huggins