Thought this week​

Unleashed Expression and Strategic Joy

My monthly column TOMORROW for Spur came out in Japanese newsstands. Spur is one of the leading fashion magazines in Japan and for this issue we focused on people and businesses igniting a creative revolution in a world challenged by global crises and internet homogeneity.

Weaving brighter tomorrows and building new worlds with future storytelling, human ingenuity, and community spirit.

World building, essential to writers, filmmakers, and game developers, does not require AI. Even a typewriter can suffice. Yet, with pioneering AI technologies, the possibilities are endless. When used strategically, these tools fuel a powerful wave of futurism. World building is a powerful antidote to chaos, fostering optimism and resilience in an era of anti-fragility systems, restorative design, and conscious creativity.

Artists, writers, and creative thinkers have always prototyped new worlds. Now popularised, the practice of world building and speculative design is inspiring people, businesses, and entire industries to profile future worlds. I redefine 'worldbuilding' as a call to action, challenging the traditional notion of constructing fictional universes to bring it into the realm of real-world impact, encouraging people to see themselves as world builders.

Imagining futures unbounded by present limitations

Marketing and creative teams are harnessing various mediums to imagine futures unbounded by present limitations. ​Lyaness​, the flagship cocktail bar from Mr Lyan at Sea Containers London, designed a unique cocktail menu inspired by science fiction, circularity, culinary and biotech advancements. This multi-sensory experience offers a window into the future of food and flavours, with each cocktail telling a story that blends innovation and deliciousness.

Sustainability journalist and Wardrobe Crisis host Clare Press recently launched ​Wear Next: Fashioning the Future​. The book presents alternative futures for the fashion industry, addressing its current environmental and ethical challenges with 16 scenarios, from slow and upcycled to bio-intelligent and digital, offering hope and a roadmap for a sustainable future. In ​Hip Hop 2073: A Vision of the Future, 50 Years From Now​, WIRED contributor C. Brandon Ogbunu and Grammy-winning rapper Lupe Fiasco painted two scenes of how the duality of AI will shape the musical genre of Rap in five decades.

Unleashed expression and strategic joy are also a form of activism. "We don't want Utopia, we want Protopia," says futurist Monika Bielskyte, founder of ​Protopia Futures​. At ​Future Days​ in March 2024, a festival aimed at shaping responsible paths for Lisbon's future, Bielskyte spoke about her protopia framework as an antidote to fear-based futures. She emphasized the importance of informed hope and inclusive visions for the future, focusing on social, cultural, and political solutions.

Creating awe defines the sentiment

Strategic imagination is also maximalist and opulent, tapping into the surrealistic. Building on this, generative AI, large language models and data visualisations offer never-before-seen visions of humanity, and pluralistic understandings of our collective futures.

Refik Anadol , a pioneer in AI aesthetics, recently hosted ​Echoes of the Earth: Living Archive​ at Serpentine Galleries. At the crossroads of visual art, science, and technology, the show featured immersive environments generated by AI models using data from coral reefs and rainforests. Highlights included Living Archive: The Large Nature Model, the world's first open-source AI model dedicated to nature, and Artificial Realities: Coral, a sound and video experience showcasing coral reefs' ecological significance. Wired recently showcased ​a psychedelic visual journey of the Internet's evolution​ with the hyperreal and fantastical visualizations made by Security researcher Barrett Lyon, who mapped out the Internet's network infrastructure.

World Building Futures

World building is the framework I use, created in 2022 for Trend Atelier. Traditionally world building is known as the practice of creating imaginary worlds in science fiction and gaming.

I believe that worldbuilding can be more than creating fictional worlds. As we find ourselves within structures and narratives that don't work anymore in our everyday realities, the act of imagining new worlds is a pragmatic imperative.

Indigenous knowledge informs unleashed expression and world building

Social practice artist Daniel Godínez Nivón for his project ​Essay on Oneiric Flora​ was inspired by dreams from the Triqui indigenous community and an orphanage in Mexico City. The project brings to life imaginary plants using scientific and technological methods, including illustrations, 3D modelling, and holographic projection. Godínez Nivón founded the Oneiric Propaedeutic workshop and for over two years, participants from the Yolia Orphanage in Mexico City shared dreams about plants. Botanists and illustrators then created scientific illustrations and 3D models of the imagined flora.

​Kira Xonorika​, an artist and futurist, uses AI to challenge fixed categories and Western colonial power systems. In an interview with Kate Armstrong, Xonorika discusses the importance of reconsidering identity as fluid rather than fixed, mirroring nature's rejection of rigid classifications. Xonorika promotes possible futures where humans and more-than-humans coexist, critiques tech-solutionism, and envisions art as a means to invoke multimodality, coexistence, and regeneration.

The most Punk thing

Ultimately unleashed expression stems from a desire for positivity. It is not utopian; it is the most punk thing you could do in times of global crises and negative 24-hour news. ​Positive News magazine​ highlights uplifting stories of progress and empowers readers to make a positive difference. Resilience will mean prioritising creativity and openness. Bringing together a blended family of aesthetics, technologies, disciplines, communities, and viewpoints will become a metaphor for generosity. Unleashed creativity may seem ‘out of control’ semantically. But it is everything but that. It defines a clear and highly strategic path as we collectively seek to regain our human creativity in a confused world.

Read the issue available in stands in Japan

By Geraldine Wharry