Especially in the 20th and 21st centuries, conceptions of the future are tightly intertwoven with technology. Today, AI and automation are in the spotlight, as forecasters anxiously predict technological unemployment. Possible futures on Mars or the moon capture the popular imagination, as Silicon Valley billionaires pursue their private space colonisation projects. More gloomily, climate predictions from the IPCC and others sit like a storm cloud on our temporal horizons, signalling the need for vast investment in renewable technologies to avert disaster.

We are therefore delighted to welcome four speakers to Oxford to speak with us on 15 June. We will first hear from Drs Lise Butler and Maria Christou, who have been working on a podcasting project, “The Art & Artifice of Prediction,” which explores the histories of futuristic forecasting, art, and technology in the Cold War, supported by the British Academy. This will be followed by Luke Wintour and Alex Rugman, who have recently produced an acclaimed show, “Move Fast And Break Things,” a ‘sinister and surprising excavation of the internet as we know it today.’ Brief presentations will be followed by a moderated discussion and Q&A with OTIS attendees.

Drinks and refreshments will be served.

More information: torch.ox.ac.uk/otis