Our friends over at Institute for the Future in Palo Alto recently released a report to help people think about possible futures of food for the next decade.

Four Futures of Food serves up a quartet of scenarios plotting out alternative descriptions of how America, as well as the wider world, could be eating in. . .   Read More

You’ve seen Seattle-based artist Chris Jordan‘s work before — at this very blog, for instance. Aside from the unmistakable green thread of ecologically conscientious, socially critical themes running through it, a signature element is his use of scale: a pattern that looks one way at a distance is revealed as something else up close. Often […]

[Image courtesy Matthew Buckingham]

“The Six Grandfathers, Paha Sapa, in the Year 502,002 C.E.” is the handiwork of Matthew Buckingham, an Iowa-born, New York-based artist, whose output, says his website, “questions the role that social memory plays in contemporary life. His projects create physical and social contexts that encourage viewers to. . .   Read More

Embraces Shorter-Term Thinking

[Image: NYSE by Flickr user Ernst Moeksis]

This stellar piece of reporting, published earlier in the month at Onionesque news site Red Tractor USA, speaks for itself.

NEW YORK – It was champagne and truffles on Wall Street last Monday as the Dow soared almost two whole points during a five minute. . .   Read More

Image from Perroquet (02008) by Sølve Sundsbø, at SHOWstudio

Inspired by science photography and nature documentaries, Norwegian fashion photographer Sølve Sundsbø produced an art exhibition called Perroquet, comprising a stunning series of photographs and slow-motion videos showing the spectacular plumage and graceful movement of a slender, long-tailed parrot in flight.

This. . .   Read More

Photo: John Cage Organ Foundation, Halberstadt, Germany
via ABC News Online

Fair warning for long-term music lovers: the world’s slowest concert, a 639-year organ piece by American avant-garde composer John Cage (01912-01992), will next change notes in just over a month’s time, on 5 November 02008.

St Burchardi church. . .   Read More

It is 02019.

A multi petabyte-scale simulation of global processes, called the Global Extinction Awareness System (GEAS), has just determined that, without immediate action, humanity will survive only another 23 years before the deadly synergy of five catastrophic Superthreats does us in.

The Superthreats are:
1. Quarantine — declining health and pandemic disease, including the. . .   Read More

In a post entitled “Temporary Becomes Permanent“, Kevin Kelly recently shared his thoughts at this blog on how fragments of culture that start out with a limited life expectancy can survive to become embedded much more deeply. The example he had in mind was the wartime graffito “Kilroy Was Here” which has now unobtrusively, yet […]

02060s, that is.

User-modified self-and solar-powered hybrid wireless telephone
Design by FoundFutures, executed by Dan Phelan

User-modified cookware (“hubcap wok”)
Design by FoundFutures, executed by Sally Szwed

Military uniform of the Army of O’ahu, Confederation of Hawaiian Republics
Design by FoundFutures, executed by Haruko Moberg

What if an energy crisis. . .   Read More

Image: Screenshot from Web of Fate A startup site called Web of Fate, launched in July 02008, crowdsources a timeline of users’ predictions, goals and other ideas about the future: Web of Fate is a social experiment that harnesses the collective intelligence of the web to visualize and uncover hidden relationships among future and historical […]