Future Talks

By Fab Lab Barcelona

Future Talks is a series of conversations with friends of Fab Lab Barcelona, exploring the nature of emerging futures from the past to the present and beyond.

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Will there be urban-rural farmers in the future?

Future TalksSep 03, 2020

00:00

13:13

Transforming ideas into reality

A conversation with crowdfunding platform Kickstarter

Welcome to Future Talks, the podcast that shapes the future through innovation, technology, and creativity. These talks will take you to the forefront of ideas, inventions, and groundbreaking projects. Get ready.

In this special episode, we had the opportunity to attend the Republica Festival in Berlin. Amidst this vibrant atmosphere, we had the pleasure of sitting down with Kaye Simmington, Design & Tech Outreach of one of the industry's foremost crowdfunding platforms: Kickstarter.

Aug 01, 202336:29

Think globally, fabricate locally

🏭 The climate disaster as well as social inequality can be traced back to our current form of production and consumption. Digital Fabrication has the power to shift this system, enabling local production and giving power to communities. Fab City was born to push this agenda and to empower Fab Labs to engage in a bigger mission - from being leaders in technology to finding their purpose.

🔄 For this episode, Tomas Diez has switched roles - from interviewer to interviewee. Tomas is the founding partner and Executive Director of the Fab City Foundation, which was established to support the Fab City global initiative, a global movement for cities to produce (almost) everything they consume. Tomas gives us an insight into the mission of Fab City, its network and structure as well as the challenges they are confronted with. Currently based in Bali, Tomas discusses some observations he has made about the design and technology ecosystem of this new home and what we can learn from the island's traditions.

🏝️ From Oct 12-22 the Bali Fab Fest is bringing together local and global innovators to design and prototype possible paths for Bali towards a regenerative economy. Innovators, makers, entrepreneurs, organizations, and the public sector get the chance to create meaningful in-person connections in the world’s biggest digital fabrication event. During the conversation, Tomas shares some details about the event that combines the 17th edition of the Fab Lab Conference and the 7th Fab City Summit 2022.

Find more information and get your tickets for the Bali Fab Fest here: https://bali.fabevent.org

Sep 28, 202246:48

The democratization of future-making

🌎 Climate change, energy transition, public health emergencies like obesity: Today we are facing major transitions and challenges which makes #futuring not just all the more vital but also creates a need to make it more inclusive and involve the general population.In this episode of future talks Oscar Tomico, MDEF Co-Director, is talking to Scott Smith, #futurist and founder and managing partner of Changeist. In the last decade, futuring has undergone a big transition. Scott talks about how futurism has developed and where it stands today, why #designers play a key role in futuring, and what the future of futuring will look like. Scott Smith has been working in futures for more than 15 years and in 2007 founded Changeist, a multidisciplinary consulting and research group engaging in a wide-ranging spectrum of activities concerning the future. Changeist works with organizations and companies globally guiding them through possible futures by blending #research, #sensemaking, #engagement and #strategy. Future Talks is a series of conversations with friends of Fab Lab Barcelona, exploring the nature of emerging futures from the past to the present and beyond. Follow Fab Lab Barcelona on:
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/fablabbcn
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/FabLabBCN/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/FabLabBCNOr visit: https://www.fablabbcn.org

Jul 21, 202110:52

How did Cuba champion open source culture?

💭 The concept of open source has been practised for decades. In Cuba, 1991 – Verde Olivo – the official press of the Cuban Revolutionary Armed Forces published ‘El Libro de la Familia’ (The Book of Family). ‘El Libro de la Familia’ compiles things – from refrigerators to recipes – from the Soviet era and guides on how to repair them. This was a response to the 90’s economic crisis and began to lay out the foundations of collective, collaborative culture which is so often seen in the world of open source.

📺 In this episode, Ernesto discusses how material scarcities have led to powerful movements in design and development and how it is interrelated with emergent futures. Ernesto visited Fab Lab Barcelona at IAAC to give a masterclass to the students of the Master in Design for Emergent Futures about his inspiring work and message. Ernesto is a Cuban artist and designer working at the intersection of art, technology and societies.

🗣 Hosted by Fab Lab Barcelona & MDEF Director Tomas Diez 💬 Future Talks is a series of conversations with friends of Fab Lab Barcelona, exploring the nature of emerging futures from the past to the present and beyond. 📢 🔎 Follow Fab Lab Barcelona on Facebook, Instagram & Twitter.

Sep 04, 202045:58

How do we turn protests into proposals?

🌎 What has changed in the world? We now globally recognise the existence of climate change. Our perception of what is morally normal has transformed – we now recognise sustainability in professions, our schools strike, and we have begun to listen to transformative ideas. ✨

📺 In this episode, Kate Raworth and Tomas Diez caught up at the Fab City Summit in Amsterdam during the 2019 We Make The City Festival. Kate and Tomas discuss the three horizons theory of change, how Fab Labs are acting as the seeds of change and stand as a concrete example for global transformation, 21st-century economics, cosmolocal production and, crucially, how citizen engagement is at the heart of this.

Sep 03, 202028:25

How to create extraordinary things through legitimacy?

💭 How do we create new narratives from local contexts? This is crucial in order to democratise our imaginations of what the future looks like - creating decolonised, philosophical and cultural narratives of local futures. This is rather than a future we currently live in that is dictated by the hands of a few in Silicon Valley. Design is unique in its way it contributes towards the world - this opens up opportunities for new paradigm shifts.

📺 In this episode, Indy Johar and Tomas Diez discuss the role of interventions, design, and building legitimacy to create distributed networks that address large-scale, or wicked, problems. Indy visited Barcelona to give the students from the Master in Design for Emergent Futures a masterclass in his work and vision. Indy is an architect, founder of the critical practice Dark Matter Labs and part of the project00 design collective.

🗣 Hosted by Fab Lab Barcelona & MDEF Director Oscar Tomico 💬 Future Talks is a series of conversations with friends of Fab Lab Barcelona, exploring the nature of emerging futures from the past to the present and beyond. 📢 🔎 Follow Fab Lab Barcelona on Facebook, Instagram & Twitter.

Sep 03, 202012:11

The future of plastic

📌 The plastic problem has now become a mainstream concern - this does not mean that we, as designers, makers and humans can ignore the problem. This calls for a sensibility in our design approach to plastic - creating smaller, more distributed networks of knowledge which are working together to change the plastic problem. Precious Plastics is a perfect example of a community which has created open source tools to empower behaviour change - and our plastic waste.

📺 This episode comes from the Plastic for Good Challenge held by Distributed Design Market Platform and Precious Plastics. In this episode, Kate discusses with Mattia, from Precious Plastics, the crucial role of community, design sensibility and the upcoming projects that Precious Plastics are working on. Precious Plastics is currently based in Eindhoven, Netherlands, in which their space is situated within a hub of other creative enterprises, alongside cohabiting 10 houses to make the local Precious Plastics community.

🗣 Hosted by Fab Lab Barcelona & Kate Armstrong 💬 Future Talks is a series of conversations with friends of Fab Lab Barcelona, exploring the nature of emerging futures from the past to the present and beyond. 📢 🔎 Follow Fab Lab Barcelona on Facebook, Instagram & Twitter.

Sep 03, 202033:14

On de-objectifying design

💭 How does design shape society? How does society shape design, our politics and the way our cities are shaped? Activism can lead to substantial change, however, it requires a system of different actors involved for transformative change to occur. This can be seen in the movement of guerilla gardening which has led to greater visions of greener spaces and community-managed gardens.

📺 In this episode, Ezio and Tomas discuss the role of the designer in the city, in which design is involved within a complex system of interrelated relationships. Design is no longer solely object-orientated but is now more sensitive - where specificity and hybridity in the profession are both embraced. In the orchestration of this, we live, see and play in the lively interfaces of the urban fabric - the city.

📌 Ezio Manzini is a design academic well-known for his work on design innovation and sustainability. Ezio’s previous career and experiences have led him to the position to challenge the role of design we see today. Ezio visited Fab Lab Barcelona to give a masterclass to the students from the Master in Design for Emergent Futures and is working on the Design for City Making program at ELISAVA.

Sep 03, 202033:43

Will there be urban-rural farmers in the future?

📲 Our hyper-connectedness in urban areas can lead us to forget what actually constitutes our wellness. Not just the gym membership, but in fact, the sustenance we put in our bodies. This fuels us to be able to make executive decisions, set our own paths and give soul in what we do. ✨

📺 In this episode, John Hardy and Tomas Diez visit Valldaura Labs. A campus created by The Institute for Advanced Architecture of Catalonia (IAAC), focused on research and education on self-sufficient habitats. Here they discuss the need for personal change to construct new worldly narratives - or reconnect to traditional agricultural narratives in a world that have the potential to be locally productive and globally connected. For this to happen, we need learning environments which create an intelligent sense of activism from when we are young. John Hardy, also known for his jewellery, speaks of mitigating the environmental effects he has contributed towards. John now runs the Green School, located in Bali, which challenges mainstream schooling methodologies and hopes to inspire generations to become considerate and compassionate in their future professions - from design to politics. “If you can’t compost it don’t buy it.”

Sep 03, 202013:13

Designing for the unknown

💭 "Design always implies an intervention." Who are we designing for? What are the consequences of our designs? The way in which we design often has unknown consequences and risks - this calls for contemporary designers to embrace the position of not-knowing, but also recognition of the limits to our abilities. Design is a multi-stakeholder process which includes many non-human actors. In the acknowledgement of our limits, we may be able to create designs which in fact bring us closer to natural systems.

📺 In this episode, Ron Wakkary and Oscar Tomico discuss our relationship with the world, our values and the potential for Posthuman design. Wakkary visited Fab Lab Barcelona at IAAC to give the students from the Master in Design for Emergent Futures a masterclass in his work and theory. Ron is a full professor in the School of Interactive Arts and Technology at the Simon Fraser University in Canada, founder of the Everyday Design Studio and also a full professor in Industrial Design at the Eindhoven University of Technology in the Future Everyday Cluster.

Sep 03, 202009:31