Trailer
Course modules
Charting the throughlines of agriculture, technology, energy, pharma and global trade, and more.
In this opening session we chart the throughlines of agriculture, technology, energy, pharma and global trade, and more to better understand the power dynamics of the global economy across geographies and peoples. In the process, we explore the story of the growth of corporate power, monopolies and wealth accumulation, as a story of continued and intensified colonialism into the modern day. What is the cost of these continuing forms of power?
Explore abstract worlds of finance and monetary systems, accumulation of power and wealth.
This session builds from the opening week to explore the abstract worlds of finance and monetary systems. We continue to explore the accumulation of power and wealth through these systems, and see how the major players are related, or even the same. We look at “hegemonic cultural processes”, or the ways in which corporate influence extends into building cultural narratives around what is “in your best interest” and what is “for the good of mankind”. We ask questions about how much of our beliefs are constructed, for whose benefit, so that we may free ourselves from believing that the answers to the world’s crises can be found in something money can buy. In this session, we begin to see how technology and digitisation are tools to further entrench the powers that be.
Zero in on the digital age to critically analyse how power and control are exerted in emerging and existing technologies.
This session zeroes in on the digital age to critically analyse how power and control are exerted in emerging and existing technologies. We look at data, the media, geopolitics, and surveillance capitalism. What really is the digital age bringing about? What lies at the centre of the technology around and inside us? What does that mean for individual freedom? In this session, we move away from the easy claim that robots will take over, and explore the more concrete reality of certain major players dominating instead—a path that we’re already going down.
Dive into the fascinating world of self, identity and personhood.
This session dives into the fascinating world of self, identity and personhood, and how they are being influenced and shaped by emerging technologies. What do these systems have to gain from reaching into our identities and relationships? What is the currency in the digital age, if not exactly money? What is the price we are paying for being online for “free”, and what do they stand to earn? What happens to us when we become “users” rather than persons, and how does that subsequently reframe how we see the world around us, and how we’re embedded within it? In this session, we explore all these themes with fellow humans who have studied culture and technology, and the intersections of the two, to paint us a picture of what’s really happening to our minds.
Explore a world of resources that are managed together, where we are all stewards, all stakeholders.
In this session, we explore a world of commons: where resources are managed together, where we are all stewards, all stakeholders. How can we resist the idea that Silicon Valley algorithms know better? How do we rewrite the rules? How can we revalue diversity and the local? How could technology mirror ecology? We hear from experts who are building infrastructure to take back the commons and generate capacity towards a fundamental transformation of the digital age. We also explore what a diverse education system might mean, and how important it is to unlearn many of the realities we have come to believe as our only option.
Reimagine humanity, body, myth, and embrace a more holistic and flourishing future.
Reclaiming the future is possible. Though these vast systems of power and control seem entirely inconceivable to overcome, knowing how they work, the stories that they tell, the people they are trying to create, we can begin to rewrite and reclaim. The only way out, as they say, is through. And one way through is embracing the power of reimagination. Tech futurists insist on one version of the future, with all the solutions, with ease and convenience, everything being predicted, right at your fingertips. But a flourishing future is one that embraces diversity, one that recognises that we need each other more than the systems that have been created. If we are to free ourselves from these systems, we have to free each other and ourselves, so in this final session we seek to reimagine humanity, body and myth. How can we embrace a more holistic imaginary, and envision and bring into being the flourishing future that we want for all?
