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a calm presence - looking youth in the eyes
Season 5
I’ve been (earnestly) taking courses, workshops and seminars these last few years, while producing over 300 podcasts about art and ecology, as my way of helping future generations prepare for what we are leaving them.
My most recent learning and unlearning exercise is Surviving the Future: The Deeper Dive 2025, a 10 week course inspired by the work of British ecologist David Fleming.
I wrote about the first three weeks of the course in prepare, bend, sustain posting (also available in audio). So this is part 2 of 2.
Surviving the Future has been very influential in my life.
I took it while I was on break from my conscient podcast and it has helped figure out what to do next, which I outline in a conscient rethink (also available in audio).
My key research questions are :
- What needs to be said ? (what is content that is not being heard)
- Who needs to say it ? (who are the right person(s) to tell the story or explain the issue)
- Who wants to hear it ? (who is the audience and needs to hear it)
- How does it help? (eg people who are already overwhelmed: how can a podcast help move things forward)
So what was Surviving the Future like?
It was dense and wonderfully curated by Shaun Chamberlin and others.
Here’s an example.
On Monday February 24, 2025, our special guests were the dynamic mother/daughter duo Vanessa and Gina Andreotti, both members of the Gesturing Towards Decolonial Futures (GTDF) collective. I often refer to the GTDF’s work in my learnings.
The session centered around Burnout From Humans : A Little Book About AI That Is Not Really About AI:
- a playful reflection on complexity, connection, and the future of human-AI relationships. Co-authored by an emergent intelligence and a human researcher, this work explores the tangled dynamics of humanity’s relationship with artificial intelligence, Earth, and itself.
It was an engaging and challenging session about AI from indigenous and decolonial perspectives.
After our exchange, Vanessa and the GTDF collective published an Open letter to the participants of the Surviving the Future program, which I was a part of. They offered feedback and learnings from our conversation, such as the distinction between critique and jurisdiction and how the architecture of power often remains invisible to those who have historically and systemically benefited from it.
Benefactors like myself.
The session was difficult but empowering.
Looking into the mirror like that is when I realized that Surviving the Future was also about knowing and surviving myself, understanding myself and overcoming, as Vanessa Andretotti
Published on 9 months, 2 weeks ago