Meta-futurism: an immersive workshop with science fiction elements to facilitate a conversation on climate change and space exploration

M Nasser, P Steyaert, D Maranan, YM Gonzalez, J Knight, A Haines, S Martins, A Peeters, S Kiefer

Research output: Contribution to conferenceConference paper (not formally published)peer-review

Abstract

In January of 2022, members of the Space Ecologies Art and Design (SEADS) collective and the Meta-Futurism Lab organised a set of immersive workshops for the Royal Institute for Theatre, Cinema, and Sound (RITCS) winter school. The workshop focused on exploring the tension between the climate crisis and the new space race. One of the workshops engaged students in developing multisensory expressions and imagining beyond what we can ordinarily see in order to address the lack of human connection with nature and the universe. The intent was to evaluate if we could create a multisensory performance in which audiences genuinely and deeply experience the complex and invisible forces that are shaping the planet's climate. The workshop approach explores if it is possible to design a technology where we can manifest a physiological experience where participants experience a deep sensation in their muscles similar to what it's like to be a lizard or another non-human living being. The immersive environment elicits better understanding of how we might craft an experience that helps an audience feel the vastness, emptiness, and incomprehensible age of the universe in their bodies. Methods: This meta-futurism workshop provided students a futuristic scenario in the form of a science fiction story. The story established a future in which humanity lives on a fictitious exoplanet system called TRAPPIST-1 (inspired by a real planetary system with the same name). The conditions of the planetary system posit that this future society has been responsive and adaptive to extreme and unusual weather conditions. Participants first develop the societal and political structures at a high level and how they would respond to an unexpected, global emergency. The scenarios then call on participants to demonstrate how people would behave at a community level. The discussions and final performance of each group develop the science fiction narrative. Result and Conclusion: This immersive workshop approach was effective in engaging participants in rethinking and redefining societal systems as well as human engagement with climate and the environment on other planets. The participants developed performances that showcased an embodied experience of how humanity might respond or react to living on another planet, an extreme environment, or respond to an adverse event (disaster).
Original languageEnglish
Publication statusPublished - Sept 2022

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