Please Answer
who are you?
what brings you to the lab?
What connections would you like to see with the work you are currently doing?
hi @alberto @Nic010 @Tim_Reutemann @dkaplan @zazizoma - can I ask each of you to post your replies/ intro in a comment here to help us get the thread going before the sunday meetup with participants?
who are you?
Daniel Kaplan. I’m the cofounder and director of the Plurality University Network, a nonprofit based in Paris Whose mission is “to explore and open possibilities for the emergence of empowering, just and sustainable futures, by mobilizing resources of the imagination (art, fiction, speculation…).” Before that, in prehistoric times, I created a ran one of the world’s first digital communication agencies; contributed to the Internet’s early times and some of its institutions; created and ran a think-and-do-tank at the crossroads between digital innovations and societal issues…
what brings you to the lab?
I’ve always been interested by what Sci Fi Economics did. We co-organized a workshop with Nadia and Tim on the futures of sustainable finance, and I loved the experience. We did a long, very collaborative project on the future of corporations, which I think can be relevant to this project. I find the prospect of grounding these methods and ideas in a specific place, Messina, with people interested in applying what comes out of it in real policies and public action, really exciting.
What connections would you like to see with the work you are currently doing?
We’re only interested in artistic practices when they are collective and include people who are stakeholders, not artists. Also, this residency resonates with our work on finance and corporations. Last, the big challenge with our practice, and those of our network of members, is always the articulation with real action. Which is arguably the core (as well as the challenge) of this residency.
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who are you?
Joffa Applegate, research faculty with Arizona State University’s School of Complex Adaptive Systems, and co-lead of ASU’S Complexity Economics Lab. I develop generative, computational models to explore economic dynamics from first principles, which may occasionally intersect with neoclassical perspectives, but more often resemble ecological systems.
what brings you to the lab?
The current economic orthodoxy maintains a crushing grip on our narrative and imaginative capacity to develop effective and humane economic systems and mechanisms. Science fiction provides a possible escape from this situation, with the potential to free economic thinking. This freeing of the imagination will happen to the extent that sci-fi economics takes itself seriously.
what connections would you like to see with the residency and the work you are currently doing?
I am excited to participate in this residency in the main to observe how policy makers, artists, politicians and experts understand the economic structures they deal with and how they tend to reimagine those structures.
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who are you?
Kate Beecroft, I’m a governance and network designer currently at Centrifuge (asset tokenization platform), long time Enspiral member, formerly of Greaterthan. I specialise in facilitating groups to arrive at decisions, advising and coaching startups and charities, and business model design.
what brings you to the lab?
Curiosity to bring back experiments to reinvigorate the future reality zone that I have lived in for so long (regarding work, income, new technology) and which seems at risk of slipping away.
What connections would you like to see with the work you are currently doing?
There could be so many, from forking a borrowing and lending protocol to finance regenerative agriculture, to novel ways (policies, technologies, strategies) to help electrify Europe, to learning about new narratives for governance modalities (like, a carbon tax is not a tax but rather ‘paying the true and full cost’).
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who are you?
I am Alberto Cottica, economist with a complexity science angle. I worked in some public sector organizations, and co-founded Edgeryders. I aspire to being a new kind of social scientist some day, in the Lab we called that an aethnographer.
what brings you to the lab?
I am frustrated with the insistence on orthodoxy of the economics profession. Having dabbled in the history of economic thinking, I know that was not always the case. The Lab is a place where I can think like a political economist of the 19th century. At last!
what connections would you like to see with the residency and the work you are currently doing?
My long-term goal is working in a programme where different regions and cities would be encouraged to experiment with different economic models. In the residency, I expect to do a prototype of that with the city of Messina.
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who are you?
I am Luca Cominassi, a lawyer working between administrative law and tech law. I help public administration and elected officials to practice participatory policies.
Always passionate about politics, I have supported existing political organizations, with some disappointments. I recently wrote a book hypothesizing a model for a 21st century party which consistently manages (and not just before elections) to enhance collective intelligence through digital technology.
I am the co-founder of a platform that supports political candidates who fight for social and environmental justice.
We established a global collective which via its members has been fighting for a radically just and regenerative society for about 20 years.
what brings you to the lab?
Our experiments of recent years showed me the importance of biographies consistent with the values we try to carry forward. The organizers of this initiative and the names involved motivated me.
I hope that the model we will work on will help me understand if and how it makes sense to dedicate to the transition from existing organizations or if it is time to think about the transformation and creation of new organizations.
One of the smartest criticisms I received with my book mentioned above was: how did you plan to get the current leadership to accept the transition from the status quo if you offer them nothing?
what connections would you like to see with the residency and the work you are currently doing?
I would like to ensure that the prototype that will emerge from the residency can be used by the radical communities we have around us for concrete experiments i.e. Parti Collective’s long-term strategy is to create places consistent with the values we want to carry forward
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who are you?
Tim Reutemann - I come from a xenial perspective, having grown up with connected computers when noone in our parents generation around me had any idea what was happening. I still draw from that experience with my assumption that we can replace most of our paper-letter-interactions with each other with videogames that can be way more fun and just. I heard progressive taxation described as a “Mariocart mechanic where the last racer gets a star and the first only a banana” and identify with that lense of analysis.
On paper, my academic background is in transdisciplinary applications of experimental environmental policy and economics - the academic mental model for my method is a multi-agent model, but instead of modelling the agents, human players get to control them through a game interface. In contrast to the neoclassically inspired experimental economics, my method revolves around re-creation of context and detail of a concrete real-world situation in the simulated environment.
Professionally, I’ve teamed up with Nadia to build a company that applies this approach in a video-based, multiplayer phone game that simulates the processes powering the Paris Article 6 Mechanism (while also applying it). Been into carbon and climate under official regimes my whole career.
what brings you to the lab?
I’ve been lurking for a long time and only got more involved since starting ClimateGains with Nadia.
What connections would you like to see with the work you are currently doing?
I miss the academic economic angle a bit and am looking forward to nerding on economic thoughts.
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Hi everyone, great to be here!
Who are you?
I’m Theo Cox, a Senior Expert at the think-tank Demos Helsinki with a particular focus on new economic thinking (despite many of the ideas and traditions I draw on not being particularly new).
what brings you to the lab?
I’m excited to be able to have an honest discussion around what I view as the unavoidable realities of our predicament and the possible paths out of it. I’m ironically hoping that the SciFi framing enables us to have a discussion with far more realism than the mainstream discourse I have to carefully navigate usually in my work.
What connections would you like to see with the work you are currently doing?
I’m working on a number of projects across the beyond-GDP and beyond growth thematics. Growth in particular feels at the crux of the issue, however the realistic political economy of degrowth/postgrowth literature sometimes feels a bit lacking, so I hope to develop that.
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@TheoCox
I’m loving your ‘SciFi framing enables us to have a discussion with far more realism than the mainstream discourse. . .’. Indeed! Thank you!
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Who are you?
I’m Michele d’Alena, an innovation manager specializing in community-driven processes, a writer, and a political activist. Currently, I oversee the Civic Imagination Project at a foundation jointly established by the municipality and university of Bologna, Northern Italy. Our mission is to enhance collective capacity for generating new solutions and fostering positive societal change through active participation and creative problem-solving.
As a political activist, I’ve founded Ti Candido, an independent platform supporting political candidates advocating for social justice, and Parti Collective, an informal group striving to pioneer a new organizational approach using the metaphor of a party. Additionally, I’m passionate about writing: two years ago, I published my first book, “Civic Imagination: Bringing Community Creativity into Politics,” and I’m currently working on another dedicated to innovating public services.
What brings you to the lab?
My motto is that “the community is the message,” reframing McLuhan’s famous quote. I don’t believe in pre-packaged solutions; instead, I advocate for redesigning organizations by engaging communities to foster innovation, particularly in times of poli-crises. I hope that through the SciFi lab, we can forge new connections to stimulate fresh discussions, foster new connections, and establish new paradigms.
What connections would you like to see with the work you are currently doing?
I believe I can contribute insights from three projects:
Firstly, the Italian Just Transition Alliance, which supports environmental, social, and economic Just Transition initiatives. Founded by e strong and bold italian organizations (the Bologna Municipality, ARCI, and Fondazione Giangiacomo Feltrinelli), the Alliance facilitates collaboration among towns, cities, businesses, associations, non-profit organizations, activists, and advocates. It fosters collective intelligence and shares ideas, strategies, and practical solutions, bridging local and national dimensions.
Secondly, I’m involved in developing a new public policy for the Bologna Municipality aimed at youth. The current situation is complex, marked by reports of isolation, frustration, and a lack of empowerment among young people. However, there are numerous innovative approaches to youth engagement, which our outdated policies fail to harness. There’s much work to be done in this area.
Lastly, my personal project, Parti Collective: I’m keen to create a prototype that we can experiment with in a tangible manner.
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