The Future Speculations Reading Group (FSRG) 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.
We meet on Tuesdays from 6-7.30pm at the Pervasive Media Studio. This is ran by Katy Dadacz (Comparative Literature PhD) and Dr Francesco Bentivegna (Theatre).
The Centre for Sociodigital Futures runs a sibling reading group which runs in the day.
If you would like to get in touch or find out more please email katy.dadacz@bristol.ac.uk
2025 Dates
CCT Evening Reading Group:
21/01, 11/02, 4/03, 1/04, 6/05, 3/06, 4/07
CenSof Day Reading Group:
27/01, 3/03, 31/03, 12/05, 9/06, 14/07
Readings
03/12 Thinking with Space
Reeves, J., & Stoneman, E. From the Confessional Booth to Digital Enclosures: Absolution as Cultural Technique
An extract from Cixin Liu’s The Three-Body Problem
05/11 Thinking with Time
Is Long-Term Thinking a Trap?: Chronowashing, Temporal Narcissism, and the Time Machines of Racism by Michelle Bastian
Stop the Clock! A poem from Experiments in Imagining Otherwise by Lola Olufemi
15/10 Author Visit!
Towards a Future Tech by Mother Cyborg
24/09 Summer Reading
Unauthorised Bread in Radicalized by Cory Doctorow.
16/04 Afro-Futurist Film and Digital Waste
Neptune Frost (we will be viewing this together on 15/04)
05/03 Emerging Landscapes in Art and Technology
Issue 2 of ShiftSpace Journal (writing from K Allado McDowell, Mary Maggic, Simone Brown and Mother Cyborg and more)
13/02 Speculative Short Stories and Social Justice
Octavia’s Brood: Science Fiction Stories from Social Justice Movements, edited by adrienne maree brown and Walidah Imarisha.
23/01 Science Fiction
Lilith’s Brood by Octavia Butler
12/11 Techno-Magic
Chapter 7 Cyberspace: The Virtual Craft in 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
