Location: STRP Stage, Microstad
Language: English
Ticket: this event takes place live in Eindhoven. Select the ticket of Scenario #20 in the ticket shop. Can't be there live? Select the Digital Ticket and follow the live stream digitally!
Speakers: Hakeem Adam, Pupul Bisht (online), Juan Arturo García, KWAGO

"What does the future look like?"
"Who owns and shapes these images of the future?"
"Who is rendered invisible? Whose voices are unheard?"

Science and technology have made a lot of things possible, but also contributed to global problems that threaten our future: the climate crisis, the COVID-19 pandemic, mass extinction of species, environmental degradation, overpopulation, polarization, lethal modern war, and the menace of nuclear weapons.

We are at a turning point that calls for bold visions and radical transitions. "To change the future, we need to change the story. Not just the story itself and who it is about, but also, who imagines the story and who gets to tell it. These new stories must have the power to break the spell of the old ones." STRP Scenario #20: The Sound of Many Tomorrows invites you to explore the future of storytelling, and join an immersive experience about story-making that invites participants to listen deeply and connect with the natural world.

The STRP Award for Creative Technology 2023 Winners all have in common that their work shares different perspectives with a different sound, that arise from different cultures and traditions, than the ones heard in mainstream Western discourse. Pupul Bisht, together with the ACT Award winners: Hakeem Adam, artist collective KWAGO, and Juan Arturo García, takes you into the power of storytelling in non-western oral culture.

"What does the planet try to tell us when we pause and listen with humility?"
"How does the wisdom of non-humans enrich and pluralize our imagination?"
"What could a future, imagined from a place of this communion, look like?"

All quotes in this text are drafted by Pupul Bisht for the Decolonizing Futures Initiative as a different way how we should talk about the future and storytelling.

Part of STRP Scenario #20: The Sound of Many Tomorrows is an immersive storytelling experience about deep listening and communion with the more-than-human world. This experience creates a place of rare intimacy. As a sharp contrast to our modern anthropocentric world — where humans have the loudest voice — STRP Scenario #20: The Sound of Many Tomorrows asks visitors to tread with humility and listen to the voices of those who were here long before us and will still be here long past us.

Pupul Bisht (online) is a multidisciplinary strategist, researcher, and thought leader advocating for the power of storytelling in shaping just, inclusive, and equitable futures. Pupul has helped governments, businesses, and non-profit organizations worldwide to meaningfully engage with the communities they serve by facilitating collective reimagination of critical systems, processes, and policies. She founded the Decolonizing Futures Initiative, which aims to engage marginalized communities in imagining their preferred futures.

Ninaad Kulkarni is Creative Director with a background in Animation Film Making. In 2019, he was selected as part of the highly coveted Forbes “30 Under 30” India class. He has led projects for several top brands such as Audi, Nike, ABC, Disney, Infinity and won several awards including the ADC Cube and the Red Dot Award.

10:30 Start
10:35 Presentations + Q&A
13:00 End

*Please note: the program might be subject to change we recommend you to be on time and join the whole program.

STRP Scenario tickets do not include access to STRP Expo. With all STRP tickets you get access to participate in the online program. There is also a STRP Digital ticket that grants access to the online program only.

Hakeem Adam is a digital artist and freelance arts and culture writer exploring the power of story. He is the founder and creative director of DANDANO, a pan-African cultural platform for African film and music criticism and documentation. He is currently pursuing an MA in Digital Media at the University of the Arts in Bremen, Germany. Here Us Out is a collective listening experiment into practical philosophies from oral knowledge systems.

Juan Arturo García is developing a research-based practice that explores accented ways of living, their biopolitical affordances, and tactics for their representation. His ongoing investigation delves into the production of scientific knowledge in Latin America throughout history, with a particular focus on how complex intertwinings of technical, cultural, mystical, and political desires have been deployed – and how to understand their consequences.

KWAGO is an artistic laboratory for collective intelligence, co-creation and chance in the Philippines. The initiative was co-developed by Czyka Tumaliuan and Issay Rodriguez together with various organisations and individuals - a child, a mother, a therapist, a poet, a sound artist, philosopher, a prisoner, historian, curators, engineer, hackers and teacher. Based on the belief that deep listening is a collective act, KWAGO organises collaborative poetry sessions in a women's prison in the Philippines.

Katía Truijen is a media researcher, curator and musician. Her work is concerned with bringing people together around practices of listening, archiving, and rehearsing alternative urban, technological, and ecological futures.