ASU invites community to help redesign the future at Emerge 2015

Radically new visions of the future will be showcased as part of Arizona State University’s Emerge 2015 – a one-day event featuring visionary Jad Abumrad, host of the award-winning show Radiolab, and 10 spellbinding “visitations from the future,” including theatrical performances, improvisation, games, dance and hands-on opportunities to design and build the future.

In his 1984 film The Terminator and its sequels, James Cameron imagines a dystopic future in which armies of intelligent robots move with startling suddenness from positions of servility to utter and violent dominance, destroying civilization and driving humankind to the brink of extinction.

This, of course, is pure science fiction. There’s little reason to believe things will unfold that way. First, they would take all our jobs and wreck our economy.

This is the nightmare narrative of our future with robots and artificial intelligence. The utopian version of this tale—one accepted by many powerful people in industry and government—involves a …read more

A voice cries out in the desert:

“Know thyself, not thy selfies!”

“Digital media will not save you!”

“The zero is not whole and the one is not The One!”

Technically, we’re not in the desert—we’re in a dusty parking lot in downtown Phoenix. And the voice is not coming from the Prophet Isaiah, but from professor Ron Broglio, whom I’ve ordained as a Minister of the Digital Tabernacle. As people wander into the massive circus tent at Arizona State University’s Emerge: Carnival of the Future, they are greeted by a pair of shifty evangelists preaching the analog Word. (Disclosure: …read more

The good thing about performing music with drones is that they always show up for rehearsal on time. The bad thing is that they might suddenly drop out of the air and onto your head.

I learned all this while putting together a piece called “Drone Confidential” for Arizona State University’s Emerge, a “Carnival of the Future” that was held in Phoenix recently. Emerge is an annual circus of cool new technologies in performance, dedicated to showing how artists and machines can work together to create something awesome. …read more

Wonder Dome, a new experiment in performance platforms directed by CSI’s Imaginary College Fellow Daniel Fine, will be premiering at Mesa Arts Center in the show “Oh, No! Not That Story!”

Our friend Thad Trubakoff, an MFA student in Woodworking at ASU and a contributor to our recent Cautions, Dreams and Curiosities anthology, just let us know about a cool new project, which he calls “Gyroscopic Mandala.” Check out the demo video and read Thad’s guest post about the project below. To learn more about ASU and Mandalas, which have been popping up around here a lot recently, visit our Emerge 2014: The Carnival of the Future website: http://emerge.asu.edu.

Emerge is a creative, playful and challenging approach to the future world we want to make.

Humans tell stories; how we tell them changes.  Wonder Dome is a touring performance platform that brings traditional storytelling into the 21st century by inviting audiences of all ages into

In this episode of 5 Burning Questions, we talk with legendary science fiction author, design critic, editor and journalist Bruce Sterling. Bruce recorded this interview with us during his tenure as CSI’s inaugural Visionary in Residence. Among many other things, Bruce blogs for Wired.com and is the de facto spiritual leader for ASU’s Emerge since its inception in 2012.

Michael Trcic, lead special effects artist for the T. Rex for Jurassic Park, discusses his adventures with creating the life-size creature.

During Emerge 2013: The Future of Truth this spring, CSI Visionary in Residence Bruce Sterling was hard at work with a team of collaborators at Arizona State University testing the limits of our rapid prototyping and fabrication facilities. The result of this whirlwind of creativity is an original exhibit of 21st century Petroglifs carved into native Arizona rock with laser cutters.

Each year at SXSW Interactive in Austin, TX, science fiction author, design critic and CSI Visionary in Residence Bruce Sterling delivers an epic state-of-the-planet rant, challenging the tech industry and

CSI Visionary in Residence and Emerge provocateur Bruce Sterling delivered the closing remarks at the SXSW Interactive festival in Austin, TX last night, and we were proud to see him sporting his

By Adam Sneed Cyborgs have arrived on Earth, but there’s no reason to worry. They’re nothing like the cold machine-men from The Terminator. Cybernetic technologies that integrate with the human

Torie Bosch Slate – Future Tense

This month CSI welcomes science fiction legend Bruce Sterling, our inaugural Visionary in Residence. Bruce is currently hard at work with collaborators from ASU’s Design School, using digitally-controlled laser cutters to inscribe futuristic petroglyphs on native Arizona desert rock.

Twitter Verses We hear you. We see you. Tell us your story. On Feb. 28 – March 2, you will be part of a larger story. Emerge 2013 Tweet us a fragment of a story. The story must be true. Send as many fragments as you can. Tweet these at #emergeTV