The compleat Wired future artifacts gallery 02007

An interesting by-product of blogging regularly is that you find out what you care about, by seeing what patterns emerge in what you decide to post. (As E.M. Forster put it, "How do I know what I think until I see what I say?") For instance, I have discovered that my top tag to date is "art" (22 posts), followed by "futures thinking" (21), "future-shock therapy" (14) and "politics" (13). The conception, visualisation and production of engaging futures objects and images, from standpoints psychological, philosophical and political, have emerged as major preoccupations. So, my doctoral dissertation-in-progress is heavily influenced by the fact that the manifestation of alternative futures experientially (including visually and tangibly) is where my energy seems to want to go.

A regular source of inspiration and amusement for us, and certainly the most widely known source of futures visualisations along these lines during the last few years, has been Wired magazine's back-page feature, "Found: Artifacts from the future". Sometimes arresting, and frequently clever, they're always worth a look. However, oddly enough, I don't know of anywhere that these have yet been assembled into an accessible online gallery. So I'll be putting them here at t.s.f., working backwards year by year. There's some great work here -- and of course, much thought is in the details -- click any image to enlarge.

Enjoy.

[crayons] | Wired 15.01

[traffic fine] | Wired 15.02

[bathroom cabinet] | Wired 15.03

[nanobot spray] | Wired 15.04

[clone reunion] | Wired 15.05

[dog maker] | Wired 15.06

[comic book ads] | Wired 15.07

[GM fruit stand] | Wired 15.08

[birthday] | Wired 15.09

[halloween shopping] | Wired 15.10

[space waste] | Wired 15.11

[smart beer] | Wired 15.12

[Back to the 02006 collection | On to 02008...]