Worldbuilder

This is the competency in which—a bit like Voltron—all the others come together in synthesis, to produce big projects with deep scope.

Worldbuilding is a somewhat contentious term in futures work, but like a lot of contentious terms, the contention arises from different definitions coming into conflict.

For my money, the most concise definition of worldbuilding is that it’s what’s being done by anyone imagining futures or telling stories about them: that includes not just foresight practitioners but speculative and critical designers, as well as marketeers, political speechwriters, and even the accounts department in a big firm. What matters isn’t whether we do it or not—because we’re all doing it, all the time, just as a side-effect of being human—but rather that we do it well, and that the worlds we build are open, rather than closed.

If you’d like to know more about worldbuilding, perhaps you should read this essay I wrote for an edited volume produced by the experiential futures collective Time’s Up? Alternatively, drop me a line, we’ll set up a chat or meeting, and I can tell you directly.

Or maybe taking a look at some of the work I consider to be worldbuilding would help? Well, that’s all of my work, in one way or another… so have a browse and see what grabs you.


Projects:

  • Reimagining migration and mobility (report)

    Reimagining migration and mobility (report)

    A report on the futures of migration and mobility, commissioned by the UN’s International Organisation for Migration and produced in collaboration with School of International Futures.

  • This Mesh We’re In

    This Mesh We’re In

    This Mesh We’re In is a book of scenarios and short speculative fictions exploring the futures of infrastructure, published by Media Evolution.

  • Waves of the Blue Sea

    Waves of the Blue Sea

    Waves of the Blue Sea is a book of scenarios and short speculative fictions exploring the futures of sound and song, published by Media Evolution.

  • The Breath of the Doing

    The Breath of the Doing

    The Breath of the Doing is a book of scenarios and short speculative fictions exploring the future of digital work, published by Media Evolution.