Wednesday 30 January 2013

Wed 27 February 2013: Playing the Future (Talk) & Playtools for the Future (Workshop), Pat Kane, Lead curator at NESTA & author of The Play Ethic

Two events in the Transdisciplinary Common Room, 27th February 2013. 

1pm-2pm Lunchtime Talk - Playing The Future: how simulation, performance, making and gaming can get us us ready for the 21st century
Futurology (the discipline of anticipating possible futures) has always had an intrinsic relationship to one of our most elemental emotional and cognitive systems - play. Over-estimating the possible positive or negative consequences of one's actions, in a practice zone where risk is not fatal, is hard-wired into our evolutionary equipment as symbolic mammals. Pat Kane, curator of NESTA's forthcoming FutureFest, will show how futurology is as natural to us as daydreaming - and how a generation defined by games and simulations will take this future-consciousness to a new level.


2.30pm-4.00pm Workshop - Playtools for the Future: using Design Fiction, Gamification and SF in futurological practice 

Places are limited. Register here 

Futurology is a discipline beset with hubris, both conceptual and statistical. "All the best laid plans of mice and men...." Yet there are a range of techniques - design fictions, gamification and SF writing - which can help us navigate the future more adroitly, and enjoyably, than weighty tomes from think-tanks or corporations. This workshop will introduce, and then invite participants to briefly try out, these more expressive tools of futurology.

Pat Kane is a writer, musician, consultant and activist, based in Glasgow and London. He is Lead Curator at NESTA and the author of The Play Ethic (Macmillan, 2004), and Radical Animal: Innovation, Sustainability and Human Nature (forthcoming) (www.radicalanimal.net). He is one half of Scottish pop group Hue And Cry.

How TDC lunchtimes work
TDC Lunchtimes offer an opportunity to mix informally with colleagues from across the university. There is always a pot of tea on the go so why not bring your sandwiches and enjoy lunch with us? This term we meet every Wednesday for an hour from 1pm-2pm. There will be a talk or video or workshop for about 30 minutes, then the rest of the time will be taken up with conversation and networking around the teapot.

Location
The TDC is based in the old surgery behind Fletcher building, No.36 on the Campus Map. Access is by staff card, or ring the doorbell.

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