Neo Rural Futures
Speculative design for rurality
in global scenarios
Speculative design for rurality
in global scenarios
NeoRural Futures is the summer school of the Speculative Edu research project: an intensive workshop about speculative design practices, applied to the future of rurality.
Experiment in practice the most promising and innovative approaches of speculative design, design fiction, near future design and critical design.
You will understand how they allow to generate powerful, participatory and inclusive designs which are able to open public, shared reflections on future scenarios for our society, environment and human behaviours
Apply these approaches to rurality.
Understanding how the global phenomena of our planet (climate change, migrations, technology, energy, health, the transformation of cities, the economy) will influence rural environments, from agriculture, to the livelihood of rural villages, to the ways in which cities and rural environments will be interconnected.
Show our findings in a beautiful exhibit across design, technology, art and critical reflection.
Meet an international community of experts, influential designers, researchers, students, professionals.
Work with them to explore the futures of design and of rurality. Be part of an international publication: the outputs of the workshop will be documented, published and credited to participants, becoming part of the Speculative Edu research project.
Each day you will meet influential designers, artists, experts and institutions, to explore with them the futures of design and of rurality. Visits, conferences and meetings will be disseminated in different locations relevant for art, design and rurality, to discover with your colleagues the beautiful city of Rome.
Selected participants will receive research and working materials both in the field of speculative design and of rurality.
Participants will transform their concepts in design fiction artifacts, materializing their near futures scenarios to create an immersive exhibit.
| FREEThe event is free of charge: participants will pay for their travel and accommodation (we will indicate possible solutions for accomodation in the neighborhood, that are comfortable and welcoming, at convenient prices). |
A robotics engineer, hacker, interaction designer, TED, Eisenhower and Yale World Fellow; a digital communication, inclusion expert and cyber-ecologist. The artistic duo Salvatore Iaconesi and Oriana Persico observes the computational mutations of human beings and societies due. Between poetics and politics, bodies and architectures, squats and revolutionary business models, the couple promotes a vision of the world in which art connects science, politics,economics. Authors of publications, books and global performances, they teach and have teache Near Future, Transmedia and Interaction Design in several universities, such as ISIA Firenze, La Sapienza University of Rome, RUFA - Rome University of Fine Arts, IED. They founded the research center HER – Human Ecosystems Relazioni and the international network AOS – Art is Open Source, dedicated to the interconnections of science, technology and the arts.
Pioneer of digital culture, innovation anthropologist and radical thinker, he is known as one of the major expert in Italy and internationally in contaminating social innovation and digital technologies. He teaches Marketing, Social Transformation and Social Innovation at the Department of Social Science of the University Federico II of Naples. Interested in complexity, the infosphere and their relation with local communities, he focuses on cultural interaction (small communities/migrants), intergenerational relations and the dialogue center/periphery. He is leading the research/action programme Societing4.0 which intertweens different projects and actions. Among them the RuralHack task force works on open source hardware and DIY approaches on precision agriculture applied to the development of rural territories, internal areas and local communities. He is co-founder of Ninja MArketing, member of IADAS New York, authors of books and scientific publication. In 2018 he was appointed ambassador of Mediterranean Diet in the world.
Arts Academy Split, Croatia (leading organisation)
Ivica Mitrović,
Oleg Šuran,
Bruna Paušić,
Goldsmith College, UK
Jimmy Loizeau,
Matt Ward,
Dash Macdonald
Madeira Interactive Technology Institute, Portugal
Julian Hanna,
James Auger
Edinburgh Napier University, Scotland
Ingi Helgason,
Michael Smyth
Human Ecostystem Relazioni
Salvatore Iaconesi,
Oriana Persico
Institute for Transmedia Design, Slovenia
Sara Božanić,
Petra Bertalanič
Federico Biggio,
Daniele Bucci,
Alessandra Del Nero,
Arianna Forte,
Valeria Loreti
Herbert Natta,
Maria Valese
The event will be hosted in the beautiful location of RUFA Space, in the Pastificio Cerere: an historical building for contemporary art in the heart of San Lorenzo neighborhood in Rome, close to the main train station (Termini), the historical center of the city, and to the most characteristic neighbourhoods in Rome.
San Lorenzo is a neighbourhood with a long popular tradition in the city, and has transformed into a place that welcomes students and researchers from all over the world, as it hosts Rome’s largest university (La Sapienza), CNR (Centro Nazionale delle Ricerche, Italy’s National Research Center), as well as a selection of some of the most famous art, culture, food and nightlife locations in the city. Next door to San Lorenzo are the Pigneto and Torpignattara neighbourhoods, which are the most multicultural and innovative places in Rome, with cultural venues, galleries, creative studios, innovation spaces, fablabs, performance arts, music and more.
The late afternoons and evenings of the event will be dedicated to going out into the city to visit the most interesting and innovative design and art studios, universities and institutions in Rome, with a focus on technologies, future scenarios, social innovation and rurality.
How can we use design not only to make products, services and technologies
easy to use, sexy and beautiful, but also to open up critical discussion about the future?
Speculative Design asks critical questions about the future and offers alternative scenarios
that help us to better understand the world of today and the world of tomorrow. Design becomes
a platform for expression to imagine possible futures and how things could be, becoming a catalyst for change.
Spearheaded by renowned European institutions in the field of Speculative Design – the University of Split (Croatia),
Edinburgh Napier University (UK), Goldsmiths, the University of London (UK), the Madeira Interactive Technologies
Institute (Portugal), the Human Ecosystems Relazioni (Italy), and the Institute for Transmedia Design (Slovenia) –
SpeculativeEdu is an European Erasmus+ project investigating novel educational skills and practices for the 21st
century, both inter- and multidisciplinary, with a special focus on relationships between people, technology, and society.
