By Rachel Beaney

Rachel Beaney is a writer, geek and internerd, who has been working on the LiveFutures2020 site.

I’ll admit it: I’m a geek. I love robots, dinosaurs, comics, science, environmental science, Star Wars, and sci-fi (although, I confess, I haven’t seen the new Star Trek movie yet).

But, by nature, I’m more creative: I love to draw, write and just get messy with things like cardboard, glue and glitter. The combination of these two urges is why I’m personally so excited about the Live Futures Festival happening on August 15th. It appeals to the outright geek and the creative hands-on person in me.

The Live Futures Festival looks at the future: science, technology, environment, design – and zeroes in on the most innovative and creative ways we should be thinking now, to get ready for the future. So, what aspects am I really excited about Live Futures?

There are workshops, creative spaces to make art or science projects, international Keynote Presentations and, just simply, some awesome technology on show. Here’s my Top Five.

1) The Emotiv Headset: moving objects in the digital sphere just by thinking.

I’m drooling a little bit at playing with this at the Festival. I know I should be thinking about the awesome medical and rehabilitative purposes, but I’m not. I’m thinking how awesome gaming will become when we can run, jump, shoot or cast spells just by thinking. On top of this – if this kind of technology is the norm in games – how are games going to transform when we’re not limited to the combinations of a ten-button controller?

2) The Future Of Energy: What are more sustainable ways to create energy? Dr. Saul Griffith is an Aussie engineer / inventor working in the USA with some very cool inventions – simple ways we can harness energy. After checking out his TED talks I’m really excited about the insight he’s going to share about how our world can shift its energy sources.

3) Us Now. It’s a film I missed recently, that discusses how our democracy is changing. With the Internet, suddenly there are entire countries that can have every individual’s opinions heard. According to e-democracy website, “Us Now takes a look at how user-driven, user-generated and online participation could transform the way that countries are governed. Imagine how Democracy could change if everyone voted on an issue through Parliament on their Facebook page – would that change the way our societies work?

4) The Theatre of Alternative Realities. It’s a space set up for improv actors and the public to explore and create their vision of the future. Improv actors will roam about the Festival interacting with Festival-goers, challenging our views on what the future could really be like. I’m kind of intrigued by how this will evolve!

5) Creative Nexus Collaboration. Translating the title, it’s basically installation artists and designers working together with scientists to create awesome hands-on experiences. This could be anything from getting a roomful of people to get their heart-beat in sync; to establishing gardening communities where Festival goers receive seedlings and create video blogs for the next few months about their plants progress; to becoming a gene for a day, by exploring ‘Decipher Code 2020′: a hands-on educational space for the public to walk, run, spin and explore gene function analytics.

There’s heaps of other stuff – like creating a computer game, building a 3D Sustainable City (I doubt my glitter-and-glue skills will come handy here, though!), the Scinema short film festival and an unconference looking at the Future and at Design.

I’ll be live-blogging and tweeting (@beaney) from the event, not to mention becoming a gene for the day. So if you see me around the festival, come and say “hi”. It would be nice to be shamelessly geeky with someone else!

Find out more about the festival here.

Tags: design, future, futurists, gaming, science theatre, sustainability

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