Human Futures: Art in an Age of Uncertainty - Andy Miah et al.
"Encounters with the future occur via a series of provocations in artistic endeavour, design interactions and cultural imaginations, which seek to consider the social impact of technology for humanity. The manifestation of these visions, as technological artefacts and social processes, infuses and reconstitutes our minds, bodies and world."
Thus begins a very interesting book that I learned about while reading an issue of h+ Magazine. The context and inspiration for the book comes from the Human Futures programme, sponsored by the Foundation for Art and Creative Technology. A collection of scholars, artists, designers, philosophers, and social critics populate the book with essays and visual performance works that cover such topics as human enhancement, biotechnology, nanotechnology, and their social impact on the future. One of the book's main meta-themes that struck me was the need for a very broad range of perspectives when speculating about the future (i.e. not just the professional futurists, trend spotters, scientists, etc.), and especially the perspectives of those individuals who are hyphenates and can internally synthesize multifaceted perspectives and experiences. That is how you generate more generous speculations about the future.
As Lin Yutang once wrote, "I rather despise claims to objectivity in philosophy; the point of view is the thing."
