22 Ideas About The Future – Cybersalon Press
22 Ideas About The Future – the first book from Cybersalon Press. Available now.
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“The shards from a score of black mirrors reflecting future truths, as only fiction can.”
– Charles Arthur, author of “Social Warming”
“If visions are futures for the heart, here we have much heartfelt foresight into how our lives, our relationships and our selves, are being transformed by data-fication. These futures feel personal, as they should.”
– Tracey Follows, author of “The Future of You”
22 Ideas About the Future – story writers collaborate with subject experts to break the frame of traditional forecasting and investigate paths where fast-evolving technology may take us. The book focuses on four main areas of rapid change: money, communities and identity, health and food, and retail and the reshaping of our high streets.
Dive into the future of abortion in the era of programmable money; living under a “nanny state” determined to control what you put on your plate; trading convenience against surveillance in your local neighbourhood; earning real, transferable cash via gaming; the impact of total financial surveillance on the future of politics; and many more.
Based on the year long events & workshop series ‘Tales From The Cyber Salon’ this collection of provocations brings together a blend of near-future speculative fiction and non-fiction commentary. Be prepared for warnings and inspirations from those who speculate about the future and those who make it a reality.
Edited by Stephen Oram and Benjamin Greenaway, with an introduction by Douglas Rushkoff.
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About the Contributors
Cybersalon, digital think tank was founded at Networked Futures in 1997, just after third-party cookies had been legalised. We are a group of technologists, game designers, digital artists and academics, working on the edge of the future, building new solutions, researching and educating wide audiences about the threat of humans losing their agency in a data-driven society. We are affiliated to Middlesex and Westminster Universities and presented our proposals for a Bill of Digital Rights to the Houseof Commons in 2014-2015. Since 1997 Cybersalon has run over one hundred and twenty events on topics related to data in society, with large public consultations on digital rights, as well as writing the new EU digital skills course DigiBlox.org in 2019-2021.
Dr Christine Aicardi is a Senior Research Fellow in Science and Technology Studies at King’s College London, having originally trained as an engineer working in the ICT industry. She has extensive experience collaborating with interdisciplinary teams to facilitate responsible research and innovation practices in computational neuroscience, brain-inspired computing and neurotechnology projects. Her research interests are the sciences and technologies of brain and mind; the study of interdisciplinary practices and collaborations; futures studies, notably the use of speculative science fiction for participatory foresight work.
Author (The Gray’s Anatomy, Origamy, Invisible Ecologies and Soul Chasers: The Decomposition Comedy), Senior TED Fellow, and Professor of Regenerative Architecture at the Catholic University of Leuven (KU Leuven) Belgium, Rachel Armstrong, researches the inner life of “things” seen and unseen and experiments with the very stuff of life to ask how we may design and build our world differently.
Peter Baran is a mathematician, philosopher, and film historian who is interested in how technological advances, and other unforeseen events, inadvertently change society and art. A life-long Londoner, he has worked in education for over twenty years. He has written extensively online about film and popular culture as co-editor of www.freakytrigger.com. Friday Night at The Horse and Zoom is his first piece of published fiction.
David G.W. Birch is an author, advisor and commentator on digital financial services. An internationally-recognised thought leader in digital identity and digital money, he holds a number of board and advisory roles across these fields. He is a Forbes contributor and a columnist for Financial World. Previously named one of the global top fifteen favourite sources of business information by Wired magazine, he was identified as one of the top ten most influential voices in banking by Financial Brand.
Paul Currion works as a consultant for humanitarian organisations. His short fiction has been published by The White Review, Nature, Carve, Going Down Swinging and other magazines; and in anthologies for Virtual Futures, Fox Spirit, Leaf Books, and National Flash Fiction Day. His non-fiction has been published by Granta, Aeon, The Daily Telegraph and other magazines, and he has presented installations at the Vienna Biennale, Berlin Soundout!, and TransEuropa Belgrade. His website is www.currion.net.
Inventor and technology consultant Angus Fraser is an Agile Development Sherpa for Slalom, working with Amazon Air, Microsoft, and Salesforce partners. He has pioneered prototypes for ocean-rescue drones, ethical use of AI in Face Masks compliance, deploying facial recognition, and introduced Covid security e-monitoring in educational settings. Working with both hardware and software, Angus can usually be found on the cutting edge of new tech implementing pioneering devices. He is an ex-RAF pilot and loves tinkering with vintage planes and aero-acrobatics.
Benjamin Greenaway is a web applications developer, educator and ecommerce manager, with clients ranging from The Big Issue to the British Library. He recently contributed to the curriculum of a suite of digital media qualifications using the European Credit Transfer System and is currently Senior Web Development Manager at The Fold London. He occasionally writes non-fiction about technology, gaming and the web for online journals and industry magazines but his stories in this collection are his first published fiction.
Wendy M. Grossman is a freelance writer who specializes i computers, freedom, and privacy. Her work has appeared in the Guardian, New Scientist, Scientific American, and Wired. She also has a shady past as a travelling folksinger. Her website is at https://www.pelicancrossing.net.
David Gullen has sold over forty short stories to various magazines, anthologies and podcasts. Warm Gun won the BFS Short Story Competition in 2016, with other work short-listed for the James White Award and placed in the Aeon Award. David was born in Africa and baptised by King Neptune. He has lived in England most of his life and been telling stories for as long as he can remember. Find out more at www.davidgullen.com.
Liam Hogan is an award-winning short-story writer, with stories in Best of British Science Fiction and Best of British Fantasy (NewCon Press). He’s been published by Analog, Daily Science Fiction, and Flame Tree Press, among others. He helps host Liars’ League London, volunteers at the creative writing charity Ministry of Stories, and lives and avoids work in London. More details at http://happyendingnotguaranteed.blogspot.co.uk
Mark Huntley-James writes fantasy, science-fiction, or anything else that catches his attention. He has published three humorous urban fantasy novels, won the British Fantasy Society short story competition in 2013, and has various short and flash fiction in anthologies. He lives on a small farm with his partner, multiple cats, psycho-chickens, and rare-breed sheep. Sometimes he writes about the animals, but can’t get any of them to read the stories. https://markhuntleyjames.wordpress.com
George Jacobs is a short-story writer of the fantastic and horrific. He has contributed to a number of anthologies and webzines, including Railroad Tales and Enchanted Conversation. George has worked in various fields, from oil & gas to planetary science, and now plans train schedules. He lives in the UK with his pet degus. https://georgejacobsauthor.wordpress.com/
Jane Norris writes speculative design fiction about our relationship to the objects and materials around us. She recently completed post-doc research in Critical Writing at the Royal College of Art. She has several published short stories, and has written a regular Dictionary of Craft column in the Crafts Council CRAFTS magazine and opinion pieces for the design magazine Fiera. She is an Associate Dean at Richmond University, the American University in London. Contact: @janeviatopia
Yen Ooi is a writer-researcher whose works explore East and Southeast Asian culture, identity and values. A PhD candidate at Royal Holloway, University of London and author of Rén: The Ancient Chinese Art of Finding Peace and Fulfilment, Yen writes fiction, non-fiction, poetry, and computer games. Yen co-edits Ab Terra, Brain Mill Press’s science fiction imprint. When she hasn’t got her head in a book, Yen also lectures, mentors, and plays the viola. www.yenooi.com
Stephen Oram writes near-future fiction which has been praised by publications as diverse as The Morning Star and The Financial Times. He works with artists, scientists, and technologists to explore possible future outcomes of their research through short stories and is a writer for sci-fi prototypers SciFutures. He is published in several anthologies and magazines, has two published novels and two collections of sci-fi shorts. www.stephenoram.net
Jule Owen was born and raised in the North of England. Jule has spent many years working in technology businesses and is fascinated by science, technology, and thinking about the future. Her five published novels and short stories are her creative response to the exponential growth of technological innovation in the era of climate change, with a bit of magic thrown in.
Eva Pascoe is a co-founder of the first Internet Café, “Cyberia”, (London mid 1990s). She has set up the first TopShop online store and is currently Ecommerce Director at The Retail Practice. Since 2014 Eva has been involved with emerging Web3 infrastructure start-ups, campaigning for the use of hydropower for crypto mining. A consultant on an eco-friendly crypto accelerator in London, Eva is also an investor in women-led companies in sustainable tech and consumer goods. She is a winner of the Sunday Times Business Awards and has appeared on Newsnight and BBC Question Time. She writes short stories on the future of the high street, crypto and post-truth Internet. Eva is co-founder and chair of Cybersalon.
Jesse Rowell’s background in technology, English literature and poetry informs the stories he writes. He has worked in multiple technology sectors including broadcast news monitoring, supply chain logistics, and software as a service (SaaS). His novels and short stories gravitate toward picaresque themes and dystopian settings. Jesse has been featured in multiple publications across media outlets, including NPR and several literary journals. https://jesserowell.com/[email protected]
Douglas Rushkoff was named one of the “world’s ten most influential intellectuals” by MIT. He is an author and documentarian who studies human autonomy in a digital age. He coined such concepts as “viral media”, “screenagers”, and “social currency”, and has been a leading voice for applying digital media toward social and economic justice. The Media Ecology Association honored him with the first Neil Postman Award for Career Achievement in Public Intellectual Activity.
Britta Schulte writes. From one-line dystopias to PhD theses, they create technologies that we might get, to ask if we really want them. Sometimes they might create utopias. Or fairytales. Stories are spread over the Internet @brifrischu, self-published zines and selected anthologies.
Sophie Sparham is a poet and writer from Derby. She has written commissions for BBC Radio 4, The V&A and The People’s History Museum. She co-hosts the night “Word Wise,” which won best spoken word night at the 2019 Saboteur Awards. Her latest collection “The Man Who Ate 50,000 Weetabix” came out in April 2021 via Verve Poetry Press. Sophie’s work has been published in Orbis, Under the Radar and The Morning Star. Her poem Sunrise Over Aldi won third place in the 2020 Charles Causley International Poetry Competition.
Having trained as an astronomer and subsequently managed a wide range of research projects in industry, Vaughan Stanger now writes SF and fantasy fiction full-time. His short stories have appeared in Nature Futures, Interzone, Daily Science Fiction, Abyss & Apex, and Sci Phi Journal, among others. His most recent collection is The Last Moonshot & Other Stories. Follow his writing adventures at http://www.vaughanstanger.com or @VaughanStanger.