Scenario Publications

Irini Papadimitriou has made a career as a leading curator and cultural creator with vast expertise across museums, art juries, and festivals like Ars Electronica. She draws on interdisciplinary and critical discourse to explore the impact of technology in society and culture, as well as the role of art in helping us engage with contemporary and future issues.

We met with Irini to learn about her curatorial practice from the Victoria and Albert (V&A) Museum in London to Future-Everything, an innovation lab that uses art and participatory experiences as a lens to explore new ideas for the future.

‘I see art-led futures thinking as a form for gentle activism’ Q&A with Irini Papadimitriou, Creative Director of FutureEverything

Why are multinational corporations and military agencies hiring science fiction authors to help them understand the future?

In this story from the latest SCENARIO Report, we chart the recent rise of the 'sci-fi industrial complex' and what it tells us about the power of worldbuilding and storytelling to effect change.

How Sci-Fi Became Big Business Why are multinationals and militaries using science fiction to understand the future?

Brand-new issue of SCENARIO Digest out now! Available to all subscribers at cifs.dk and on the SCENARIO app.

TECH WASTE - With the coming of the Internet of Things and 5G, the number of internet-connected devices is set to explode over the next few decades. So too, most likely, will the amount of electronic waste generated from discarded technology. What needs to change, and what can consumers do (if anything) to make it happen?

SPACE TOURISM FOR ALL? - After touching down with the SpaceShipTwo in July 2021, Virgin Galactic owner Richard Branson ecstatically proclaimed that ‘space belongs to all of us’. Are we really seeing the beginning of a new era of the democratisation of space travel, or will space primarily become a playground for those with the means to go there?

DO WE NEED A 'UNIVERSAL BASIC DATA INCOME?' - Despite the large amounts of valuable data we all produce every day, we receive very little value in return apart from access to free online services. Is it time to start taking the idea of a ‘universal basic data income’ seriously?

THE END IS NIGH - A new analysis of the Limits to Growth scenarios from 1972 shows that we may be on track for some of the more dire ones. Should we be worried?

In the future, artificial intelligence will be able to do many things that benefit us. But there are also some more sinister futures and risks ahead related to the emergence of intelligent machines. In fact, AI may be able to some day control our minds - not through telepathy, but by subtly manipulating our views and actions.

Story from the latest issue of SCENARIO Magazine.

AI Mind Control Will artficial intelligence be able to control our decisions in the future?

As the global urban population swells, the challenge for urban planning not only lies in creating living spaces and infrastructure for growing populations, but also to do so in a way that makes cities liveable while also addressing climate change.

In this piece from the latest issue of SCENARIO Magazine, we explore four scenarios for our urban futures.

Urban Futures — Four Scenarios The world is facing a series of extreme challenges in the 21st century which will both influence and challenge urban living.

The significance of Professor Minik Rosing's research is likely to become more and more apparent in the years to come. He is already known and respected around the world for having found the oldest traces of life in 3,800-million-year-old rocks in 1999, which pushed the known origin of life about 200 million years back in time. But what is even more remarkable, but perhaps less well known, is his overall theory of the origin of life and its impact on our planet.

Read the interview with Minik Rosing from the latest issue of SCENARIO Magazine here:

How life controls Earth — and how it originated (at least) 3.7 billion years ago When did life arise? Professor Dr Minik Rosing has an answer, and it comes with some remarkable implications: Not only is life significantly older than we believed just a couple of decades ago, but…

What does African development mean to Africans, and how is Africa an invitation to start seeing futures differently?

Our latest instalment in the Applied Futurism article series explores an inside-out perspective on African Futures together with futurists Kwamou Eva Feukeu and Dr Geci Karuri-Sebina.

Read on here:

African Futures with Geci & Eva Q&A on anticipation and what development and growth means to Africans

A new vanguard of 'space billionaires' are leading us into an era of privatised space flight. At the front of the pack is Elon Musk, who was recently declared the richest man on Earth. Musk claims to have found inspiration for his cosmic ventures in science fiction, particularly in Isaac Asimov's Foundation saga, in which scientist Hari Seldon helps guide humanity through a dark age via the power of scientific prediction. Musk has made clear that he sees his own role in history in a similar way, meaning that his goal is to take a 'set of actions' that helps prolong civilisation and minimize the risk of a new dark age occurring.

But will commercial space exploration benefit civilisation in the way Asimov imagined?

Read the full story "Foundation or Empire?" below:

Foundation or Empire? How Elon Musk gets Isaac Asimov wrong

Will we ever find life out there?

Proxima Centauri would be a good place to look next. This star has two planets orbiting it, one of which is about the size of Earth and situated in the star’s so-called habitable zone. And it just so happens that radio signals were captured last year, possibly originating from that exact planet.

Did aliens do this? Not very likely. SETI, the organisation monitoring the cosmos for intelligent life, believe with 99.9 percent certainty that the transmission is human radio interference. But one can hope that it is something more.

Hello, neighbour! Is there alien life on Proxima Centauri b?

SCENARIO Digest issue 05 is out now! Get your subscription @ https://cifs.dk/personal/

Read about why Elon Musk gets Isaac Asimov wrong, why there is a 0,01% chance that Proxima Centauri b hosts intelligent life, whether or not 'post-traumatic growth' could be a way to deal with personal trauma in the future, why we are living in the 'Age of the Trickster', and if it's possible to imagine a future where the city is entirely car-free.

Open article from issue 59: Futures designer Monika Bielskyte is mapping out a radical framework for futures studies called Protopia Futures. Read the interview to learn more about it and two protopian sci-fi scenes that she created with Spanish designer and futurist Mario Mimoso.

Words: Martin Mitchell
Photo credit: Linas Masiokas

Protopia Futures How Spanish designer and futurist Monika Bielskyte is trying to change the field of futures studies.

New Scenario Magazine out now!

In this issue, we look to China and the technological tiger leap the country is undertaking. China has long been a blind spot in Western media, but its role as a leading technological powerhouse can no longer be ignored. Also in this issue: Lone Frank on the nature of love / Democratic sustainability / Sci-fi as a futurist tool / Best case or worst case: World population towards 2100 / The futurist: Daria Krivonos / Applied futurism: Designing futures / Protopia futures / Futures past: The ancient Assyrian who invented science fiction, and much more.

Get your subscription at https://cifs.dk/subscriptions/

In this article from the latest issue of Scenario Magazine, futurist Bogi Eliasen discusses why the right to health requires a holistic understanding of how we can provide a better quality of life and wellbeing for the individual and society.

The 10/90 Health Gap Just 10 percent of the world’s health research and development expenditure is used to solve 90 percent of the world’s health problems.

Read our conversation with Climate Activist Marc Buckley 🌍 on why we need optimistic future visions, how humanity needs to wake up to systems thinking and our common mission on Spaceship Earth. From the latest issue of Scenario Digest.

Climate Futures with Marc Buckley About the need for optimistic future visions, how humanity needs to wake up to systems thinking, and what comes after the SDGs

New issue of Scenario Digest out now!

In this issue: The ontology of tomorrow / Towards a new economy / Is history repeating itself? /Climate futures: Interview with Marc Buckley.

Get your copy at www.cifs.dk/subscriptions

"I see a very strong connection between the past and the future, and to me, history and future really are two sides of the same coin. We all know that the past is where all the colonisation happens, so when those systems, realities, and stories continue to grow and scale without being challenged, that is when the future gets colonised."

Q&A with Pupul Bisht of the Decolonizing Futures Initiative from the upcoming Scenario Report "Using the Future".

Decolonising Futures with Pupul Bisht On challenging the reproduction of past value systems and creating space for non-Westernised futures.

A new burgeoning health paradigm may revolutionise the future of medicine. Read on in this story from the latest issue of Scenario Magazine.

The Era of The Omics A new burgeoning health paradigm may revolutionise the future of medicine

"World heritage organisation UNESCO predicts that future generations will know more about what life was like at the beginning of the 20th century than they will know about the early 21st century. We live in a digital Dark Age, which is like the Middle Ages in terms of how little documentation we’re leaving for the future about what went on in this period," says Dr Anat Ben-David, political sociologist at the Open University of Israel, in this lead article from the brand-new Scenario Magazine.

To combat this, we should learn from post-colonial theory and counter-archiving as resistance.

Counter-Archiving: Combating Data Colonialism The era of data colonialism is upon us. What can we do to fight against it?

What does freedom look like in an automated future?

From the latest issue of Scenario Digest:

Freedom in the Fourth Industrial Revolution On the need to define and re-define human work and freedom in the age of automation

“There are several examples of viruses that we have never succeeded in eradicating because of constant mutation, with Influenza A and B, the common cold, and HIV being prime cases. If COVID-19 keeps mutating, it might also be something we will have to learn to live (or die) with.”

We are all wishing it would go away, but what if never does? If the coronavirus stays with us, it could lead to profound and lasting changes in our lives.

What If the Coronavirus Pandemic Never Ends? What if we never return to business as usual?

Scientists have long worked to develop an artificial womb that can carry a pregnancy to term if the mother is unable to do so. This has now become reality – or almost so, as scientists have succeeded in keeping lamb fetuses in an artificial womb for four weeks of their late development.

An artificial womb may give children born much too the chance to be fully developed and kept alive; a continuation of techniques that today keep premature children alive. It may also give the woman who wants a child the opportunity of not having to endure the burden or pain of pregnancy.

Some major supporters of artificial wombs are transhumanists, who believe in using technology to improve human health, intelligence, and quality of life.

The question, however, is not without ethical issues.

Get a copy of Scenario Magazine Issue 53 to read NOT OF WOMAN BORN by Klaus Æ Mogensen originally published in 2019: https://cifs.dk/da/shop/

Genetic technology and other scientific breakthroughs suggest it will be possible to suspend ageing within a lifetime from now. In the future, we could live forever.

Immortality and eternal youth may sound like a dream for some, but it may turn out to be a nightmare for the many. The people on top will likely have it made. Maybe forever. But what about the rest of us?

Who Wants to Live Forever? Eternal youth might be within our grasp. Should we reach for it?

We know what you're thinking: Is what I’m seeing real? Can I trust it? Is there a reason that I’m being exposed to exactly this content? With the 2020 US presidential election approaching, these questions are more relevant now than ever before.

From the latest Scenario Magazine:

The Future of the Media and ‘Doing Good’ in the Age of the Algorithm The media ecosystem is broken. But there may still be time to fix it.

Happy Halloween! We have been digging grave-deep to find a story perfect for Halloween creeps and scares. Read on if you dare …

Nothing lasts forever. Someday, inevitably, humanity will cease to be. It may happen next year or we may still exist billions of years from now. Our end may be sudden and violent, or slow in coming.

It may even be that we don’t die out, but rather move on to the next step, or steps, of being by developing technology that will transform us into transhuman beings, moving beyond the need for planets or habitats with Earthlike living conditions.

What’s your preferred future scenario? Find out when Klaus Æ Mogensen brings you 4 scenarios for how humanity will end in Scenario Magazine issue 57. Get your copy in the shop: https://cifs.dk/p/issue-57

Denmark is experiencing its moment with hundreds of women coming forward with stories of sexual misconduct by powerful men. Hashtags such as (One Among Us) flood the Internet and stories about how the MeToo-movement acts as a 'people's court’ circulate Danish media.

What we are seeing is a fundamental shift in social norms and power dynamics, driven largely by the internet and the pervasiveness of social media. Is there a downside?

Get your hands on a copy of Scenario Magazine issue 53 to read (or re-read) Anne Dencker Bædkel's opinion piece ‘When the internet is judge, jury, and executioner’ from April 2019: https://cifs.dk/p/issue-53

It is safe to say that a lot of early twenty-first-century popular science fiction represent real human beings as more preferable than their artificial counterparts. But does that need to be the case?

From the brand-new Scenario digest - out now:

Could You Love an Artificial Companion? Will the robotics industry be the next provider of human intimacy?