The Future Machine
Combining digital systems, rituals and actions as part of a mysterious interactive device that responds to global and local environmental change as the future unfolds
Supported using public funding by Arts Council England, Furtherfield Gallery, Mixed Reality Lab, University of Nottingham, Haringey Festival of Learning and the University of Nottingham Smart Products Beacon
Future Machine is a long term art/research project, due to take place over 10 if not 30 years across England, developed by The Future Machine Project – a team of artists, programmers, engineers, scientists, community leaders and committed 'guardians of the machine'.
The Future Machine, combines digital systems, rituals and actions as part of a mysterious interactive device that responds to global and local environmental change as the future unfolds. The machine records people’s visions of the future, facilitates new rituals and perspectives to help us to make decisions about the future we want, not one we fear.
The artwork was created by the artist Rachel Jacobs in collaboration with a team of engineers, musicians, programmers, climate scientists from the British Antarctic Survey, researchers from the University of Nottingham - with ideas and visions developed by participants in a series of artist-led workshops, which took place in London and Nottingham during 2019.
Alongside the development of the artwork, The Future Machine Project aims to design and demonstrate how the development of a 'build your own future machines' kit can help communities adapt to environmental uncertainty, build resilience and find ways to act in response through mitigation locally, nationally and globally.
The Future Machine artwork and 'build your own future machine kit' will be developed and tested in workshops during 2020 and as the artwork further travels across England in 2020/2021.
Once the 'build your own future machine kit' prototype is made available we will explore how this can be made available to distribute amongst community groups, arts festivals and schools alongside making workshops led by The Future Machine Project team.