How can art open nuanced ways of learning from integrating and discovering mutualistic uses of technology, creating beneficial futures for humans, and beyond?

The Future Technê Salon Series assembles cultural thought leaders—artists, writers, filmmakers, journalists, entrepreneurs, worldbuilders, and technologists—and asks them to describe their future technê, a creative contribution through a technological imagination for a better world. Their answers illuminate embodied intelligence, non-human cognition, and other more-than-human ways of being.

The Series creators and co-curators, Future Humans’ Director Claire Isabel Webb, and NeueHouse’s Director of Community and Culture Zandie Brockett, share their vision for the series.

In ancient Greek, the term technê describes both theoretical knowledge and craft practices. Future Technê sparks conversations at the intersection of novel technologies, experimental modes of governance and inclusion, narrative worldbuilding, and other creative practices that provoke futures we want to thrive in.

“Against the backdrop of an evolving biosphere, augmented and artificial information landscapes, and shifting social contracts due to ever-changing political and economic systems,” Webb and Brockett explain, “investigating future technês prompts partial answers to pressing questions of our time.”

The 2023 Salon Series culminated in the Future Technê Summit: Forming Intelligence in December 2023. Explore the summit and each Chapter below.

Dr. Claire Isabel Webb directs the Future Humans Theme at the Berggruen Institute.

Zandie Brockett 张桂才 is a curator of public programming and social practice, currently Director of Community and Culture at NeueHouse.