Designing the Future with Applied Sci-Fi

The tools of sci-fi narrative are increasingly being used in the field of design to better imagine, experience, and shape possible futures. Whether these emerging design practices are categorized as “design fiction,” “sci-fi prototyping,” “useful fiction,” “experiential futures,” or “world-building,” there is a growing field of futurists and design professionals applying these science-fictional techniques to advise companies, governments, and nonprofits on how to prepare for the opportunities and challenges that the future will bring.

Join Arizona State University’s Center for Science and the Imagination and legendary science fiction author Bruce Sterling for a virtual conversation that brings together several leading practitioners to examine this new world of sci-fi-inspired speculative design practice. We’ll dive deep into how the various methods of Applied Sci-Fi are used today and how they can hopefully help us collaboratively design a better tomorrow.

This is the second in a series of online events for the Applied Sci-Fi Project, which seeks to understand the influence of science fiction on technology and the people who build it, and to study the specific ways that sci-fi storytelling can be applied as a tool for innovation and foresight. Video from our first event, “The Sci-Fi Feedback Loop: Mapping Fiction’s Influence on Real World Tech,” is archived here. This project, led by ASU CSI Fellow Kevin Bankston, is possible thanks to generous support from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation.