Against Digital Fatalism

In recent years, mainstream media has helped to amplify hyperbolic narratives about new technologies. Technology hype has inundated the public sphere with grossly inflated expectations, promises as well as fears about artificial intelligence, the metaverse and other technological ‘frontiers’. Hype, be it utopian or dystopian, has always been an effective marketing tool. But rather than being just innocent storytelling and sometimes minimised as science fiction, such narratives can play a key role in influencing investment and policy, and ultimately helping to shape our imagination and feelings about the future.

Our project ‘Against Digital Fatalism’ seeks to challenge the mainstream technological discourse driven largely by powerful tech companies to instead envision bottom-up and more grounded ways to engage with the future. Our goal is to empower diverse audiences to engage in critical thinking about the social, political and ethical aspects of emerging technologies. We wish to invite everyone to engage actively in future making practices as a means to resist foregone conclusions and so-called ‘inevitable’ futures.

Against Digital Fatalism is a critical literacy initiative that looks at hope, human agency and the future through an experimental and collaborative exchange between social scientists, artists and creative practitioners. The project began in July 2023 with a public call for artists to join a six-month residence at the Bristol Digital Futures Institute. The project materialised in a public exhibition of three artworks which touch on specific social and ethical issues linked to extended reality and the metaverse.

We invite you to interact with each of these artworks and join us in a playful and collective exchange about hopeful futures.