Memo Futurum is an invitation to engage with our personal and collective visions of the future. The public was able to participate via website and submit a voice message until the end of 2021. The contributions were then transferred to vinyl records, which will only be opened again in 25 years, when the cycle begins anew.
How do we see ourselves and our lives in 25 years? How do we talk about our future, how do we feel about it, what is our attitude toward it? On the occasion of the 25th anniversary of the Ars Electronica Futurelab in 2021, Memo Futurum – one of the winning projects of the Futurelab Ideas Expedition – addressed these topics.
Memo Futurum photo: Birgit Cakir
Memo Futurum photo: Birgit Cakir
Memo Futurum Image: Susanne Kiesenhofer
Similar to remembering, imagining the future is not about facts or accuracy, but about how we interpret the world around us. This influences our behavior, perceptions, and values, and is part of our identity. So if we are able to access the visions of the future that we have today, we can gain a better understanding of ourselves as a society. Memo Futurum aimed to capture personal visions of the future in order to highlight and discuss them.
Everyone was invited to register on the Memo Futurum website and contribute a “memo” – a short voice message. Users were asked to imagine their personal future in 25 years in one of five areas of life: living, work, leisure, relationships, or values. After the guided “thought journey,” users were asked to answer three short questions and then share their thoughts in the form of a voice memo.
Memo Futurum was active until the end of 2021. Until then, anyone could submit their own memo or listen to other people’s voice memos. The answers to the questions provided an overview and a common basis for our collective visions. At the end of 2021, the voices fell silent. They were transferred to vinyl records and all digital copies were deleted. Then the inactive phase of the project began: the records are now stored in a glass display case for 25 years, together with important information about the project.
Every 25 years, the cycle begins anew. In 2046, the display case will be opened and the project can be repeated based on the information it contains. People will once again be asked how they see their lives in 25 years. The memos from 2021 can also be retrieved and played back. Exploring past and present visions of the future allows for comparison: How did people talk about their visions of the future 25 years ago? How open were they compared to the voice memos 25 years later – how personal, how optimistic, how curious? How has the way we talk and think about the future changed in 25 years?
The new memos from 2046 will then also be transferred to vinyl records and stored together with the vinyl records from 2021. Here, too, the voices will fall silent for another 25 years before a new cycle begins in 2071. Memo Futurum is intended to become a ritual in which we question our visions and examine how we think and talk about the future. It is a call to review our own visions of the future and to engage with the visions of others.
More information about Memo Futurum and the Ars Electronica Futurelab Ideas Expedition can be found on the Ars Electronica Blog.
Credits
Susanne Kiesenhofer
Memo Futurum is a winning project of the Ars Electronica Futurelab Ideas Expedition 2021.