The Future Speculations Reading Group, ran by Dr Francesco Bentivegna and Katy Dadacz, is based at the Pervasive Media Studio and is open to academics from UoB, UWE as well as artists and creative technologists from the Pervasive Media Studio and other creative tech groups. We engage with the methodologies of scholars, artists and writers to explore shifting patterns of creative relations between humans, machines and technologies. The aim is to discuss human and machine creativity together, whilst addressing the blurred divides between digital and analogue, real and virtual, and online and offline. This is an interactive reading group where participants propose texts, work-in-progress papers, article ideas, or creative/performance response in the hope of creating a space for critical speculation and for present and future imaginings inspired by the potentialities and problematics of human-machine collaboration
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16/04 Afrofuturist Science Fiction ( E-Waste )
Neptune Frost (we will be viewing this together on 15/04)
05/03 Remixing Tech
Issue 2 of ShiftSpace (writing from K Allado McDowell, Mary Maggic, Simone Brown and Mother Cyborg and more)
13/02 Black Futurism and Community Technologies
Octavia’s Brood: Science Fiction Stories from Social Justice Movements, a collection of speculative short stories edited by adrienne maree brown and Walidah Imarisha.
23/01 Afrofuturist Speculative Fiction
Lilith’s Brood by Octavia Butler
From January 2024, the Future Speculations Reading Group has an afternoon offshoot for those who cannot make the evenings, led by the Centre for Sociodigital Futures. Please get in touch with Laurene Cheilan (laurene.cheilan@bristol.ac.uk) if you would like to attend. We do the same readings, and interact through questions and creative responses posed to each other.
12/11 Techno-Magic
Chapter 7 Cyberspace: The Virtual Craftin TechnoGnosis: myth, magic and mysticism in the age of information by Eric Davis.
21/10 AI Imaginings
Chapter 5 Post-Machinic Learning & Anti-fascist AI in Dan McQuillan Resisting AI
31/09 Beyond Human Intelligence
Chapter 1 Thinking Otherwise in James Bridle Ways of Being
19/09 Queer Tech Meet Up X FSRG
Hacker Manifesto McKenzie Wark & The Real World of Technology Ursula Franklin
25/05 Decentralised Autonomous Networks (1)
Radical Friends Ruth Catlow & Penny Rafferty
9/05 Cyberpunk
Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence Mamoru Oshii
18/04 Science Fiction
The Employees Olga Ravn
21/03 Immersive Practices
‘Virtual reality witness: exploring the ethics of mediated presence’ Kate Nash
‘Feeling good about feeling bad: Virtuous virtual reality and the Automation of racial empathy’ Lisa Nakamura
Queering the Metaverse, a talk by Dr Jacqueline Ristola at the PM Studio which you can read about on our blog
28/02 AI and Creativity
Chapters on Labour and on Classification in The Atlas of AI Kate Crawford
The work of Holly Herndon and Lauren Lee McCarthy
7/02 Artificial Intelligence
Introduction in Atlas of AI Kate Crawford
‘Making Kin with Machines’ Jason Edward Lewis, Noelani Arista, Archer Pechawis and Suzanne Kite Jason
Posthuman Glossary: Altergorithm, AI (Artificial Intelligence) Algorithm and Kin
24/01 Technofeminism
‘Feminist Hacking Resistance through Spaciality’ in The Beautiful Warriors Sophie Toupin
Doing thinking: revisiting computing with artistic research and technofeminism Loren Britton, Goda Klumbyte & Claude Draude
Posthuman Glossary: Quantum Anthropology, Resilience, and Survival
13/12 Glitch
Glitch Feminism Legacy Russell
Posthuman Glossary: Hacking Habitat, Hypersocial, Informatic Opacity, Trans*, Xenofeminism
29/11 Techno-Creativity
Chapter 1 Beyond the Creative Species Oliver Brown
Posthuman Glossary: Anthropocene, Art in the Anthropocene, Computational Turn, In/Human, Biological Arts/Living Arts
If you would like to get in touch or find out more please email katy.dadacz@bristol.ac.uk 
