Imagining Futures: IAM Weekend 18

Do we define algorithms or do they define us? How much monetary and political power goes into a click? What might post-capitalist futures have in store for our sex lives? Should we care what androids dream about? These are just some of the questions the lucky attendees of IAM Weekend 18 will have ricocheted around their noggins during the festival’s three-day-long exploration of internet cultures. If the recent Cambridge Analytica scandal has thrown up more questions than answers and you’re craving fresh perspectives and radical ideas, Barcelona’s Auditori AXA is the only place you need to be between 27–29 April.

Run by futures-focused platform IAM and now in its fourth year, IAM Weekend 18 brings together 20+ speakers ready and rearing to shake up your pre-conceptions of what the internet is and can be. With an audience of around 500, designers, technologists, educators, strategists, marketers and researchers, the festival is a hotbed of curiosity, where attendees can explore the exciting and sometimes challenging potential futures in a welcoming and inclusive atmosphere. Expect new perspectives on reality and experimental theories on how to save the planet – politically, ecologically and technologically.

This year’s theme, ‘The Subversion of Paradoxes’, gives speakers and attendees alike a spring board to reconsider some of the contradictions of the internet age. In case you hadn’t noticed, we live in a world of Trump and Brexit, climate change and the refugee crisis – all issues that shape and are shaped by an inseparable meshing of the Internet and the physical world. The edges between them are so blurry that drawing a distinction between the two is now impossible. Through a three-day programme of talks and workshops, participants can explore the seemingly incomprehensible forces that underpin modern life and game out the multitude of ways they could play out in coming years. Most of all, IAM Weekend 18 asks how can we be empowered to mould these possible futures?

Answering these questions (and no doubt feeding attendees with a tonne more), this year’s speaker line up in an illustrious and diverse crew. Speakers include Afrotopia founder Ingrid Lafleur, infradisciplinary artist Pinar Yoldas, University of the Arts London digital learning co-ordinator, and Chief Leopard of Feminist Internet Dr Charlotte Webb, Dan Ramsden, Creative Director for UX architecture & Design Research at the BBC along Kate Coughlan, Head of Planning, BBC Design & Engineering & BBC News, indie CGI artist Alan Warburton, Digital Minister of Taiwan Audrey Tang, Kosmica Institute founder Nahum and many more. 

The diverse ideas and perspectives of this thought-provoking bunch will be structured into five sessions, each with a particular focus. Beyond Algorithms will consider the futures of work, automation and identity. Beyond Disciplines will posit ways of making education more inclusive, both of people and new ideas. Beyond Clicks will scope out how we can improve digital literacy in the realms of commerce, advertising and privacy. Beyond Desires will ask how we can redesign fashion, food and sex to challenge the widespread lack of ethics. Finally, Beyond Dreams will stretch our imaginations to rethink current dominant narratives about politics and the planet. Hold onto your hats folks, it’s going to be a wild ride!