Futurist Studies

La mostra allestita presso il Coworking Gottifredo ad Alatri [13 novembre 2021 – 09 gennaio 2022] dal titolo «Ciacelli: la visione molteplice» rimette in luce una delle figure più singolari dell’avanguardia novecentista, purtroppo spesso ingiustamente trascurata: Arturo Ciacelli [1883 – 1966].
L’opportunità è stata offerta dalla felice congiuntura tra l’Associazione Gottifredo, che si occupa di promozione culturale ad ampio spettro, e la Collezione Costantini, raccolta con passione e competenza dall’avv. Remo Costantini che, da anni, osserva il mercato delle aste alla ricerca delle tracce di Ciacelli, artista ciociaro per molti versi dimenticato nella sua stessa terra d’origine.

Terre fertile en paralittératures, familière des littératures de l’imaginaire, la Belgique semble paradoxalement peu représentée dans la veine utopique. Si en France le récit d’anticipation moderne se constitue en prolongement, souvent négatif, de l’utopie narrative d’Ancien Régime, la situation est plus difficile à déterminer pour la Belgique, où cette écriture n’a pas acquis de véritable visibilité auctoriale ou éditoriale et paraît loin de constituer un genre autonome. On reconnaît plus volontiers à la littérature belge d’expression française ses particularités, tôt développées, dans les domaines du fantastique et de la science-fiction. Il s’agit assurément d’esthétiques voisines, mais il ne faudrait pas les confondre. Roger Bozzetto a insisté pour considérer le fantastique et la fiction spéculative comme « deux genres spécifiques avec des origines, des généalogies et des visées différentes » , tandis que Darko Suvin a proposé des critères distinguant l’utopie de la science-fiction . Sous la désignation de « littérature utopique »  peuvent se regrouper des œuvres qui ont en commun les caractéristiques de la fiction prospective ou conjecturale associées à un traitement rationnel, généralement centré sur des préoccupations sociétales. Une telle définition repose à la fois sur des traits narratifs (cadre spatio-temporel d’anticipation), figuratifs (représentations de la collectivité humaine) et logiques (lien de vraisemblance entre monde fictif représenté et référence au réel). Ce numéro de la revue Textyles proposera un premier état des lieux de cette production hybride, disparate et peu considérée. Il associera, pour ce faire, des études de cas à une réflexion d’ensemble.

Futures studies have enormous effect to reduce the development gap between developing and developed countries. But there are challenges in developing countries that deeply affect foresight activities and diminish its applicable usage. Although future oriented planning usually faces natural difficulties to properly assume all values and assumptions of all stakeholders, but in developing countries some key challenges affect the outputs of the foresight process severely. In this writing these challenges are categorized into four main groups. The first group of challenges refers to Foresight assumptions and context, the second is methodological aspects of foresight, next Foresight stakeholders and networking, and finally technological aspects of foresight and its related challenges.

Luca Buvoli's single-channel video, Velocity Zero (2007-9) features various sufferers of aphasia – the brain disorder affecting speech (and often cognition) – as they read aloud the eleven points of F.T. Marinetti's ‘Founding and Manifesto of Futurism’ (1909). First screened at the Venice Biennale in 2007 as part of a larger installation, this revision of Futurism – on the eve of its centenary – entails a literal re-reading of the movement's founding text. Combining live-action footage overlaid with animation, and filmed in both English and Italian versions, Velocity Zero unstitches the movement's ostensibly streamlined poetics. In the mouths of these readers, the manifesto's language is decelerated, elided, pulled apart, giving the lie to a Futurist dream of dehumanized speech and speed. Yet many of the readings approximate Marinettian principles even as they undercut them; involuntary slips and omissions wrest a new poetics from imperative fiats. Buvoli's work thus sets into relief some vital, if unlikely, affinities: between physiological disability and avant-garde prowess, between clinical diagnosis and critical methodology. Velocity Zero restores to Futurist pronouncements the fraught embodiment of language. But it also suggests the extent to which the movement – like modernism at large – was haunted by linguistic demolition from the start.

In the social sciences, the debate concerning whether to use quantitative or qualitative methodologies for research purposes is one of the most controversial – and the most confusing.  Meanwhile, in political science and international relations (IR) no task is more important and difficult than finding a way to understand the future impact of present-day decisions and policies.  This paper presents an exploration of available methodologies for understanding political futures with the aim of finding a research tool (or tools) that can include empirical evidence in a rigorous analysis.  A future-orientated methodology ought to provide the researcher with a means to explore potential outcomes in a way that avoids unfounded conjecture, while presenting conclusions that are informative and present a basis for further research and debate.  Even if there should turn out to be no such thing as a ‘perfect’ methodology for examining the future, the goal is to eliminate methodologies that do not serve the purpose, while establishing the relative merits of the remaining approach(es), which include scenario construction as a leading possibility.

Futures studies have enormous effect to reduce the development gap between developing and developed countries. But there are challenges in developing countries that deeply affect foresight activities and diminish its applicable usage. Although future oriented planning usually faces natural difficulties to properly assume all values and assumptions of all stakeholders, but in developing countries some key challenges affect the outputs of the foresight process severely. In this writing these challenges are categorized into four main groups. The first group of challenges refers to Foresight assumptions and context, the second is methodological aspects of foresight, next Foresight stakeholders and networking, and finally technological aspects of foresight and its related challenges. Foresight programs are growing in recent years in many countries 1,2,3,4. Researches show that the trend of foresight studies in developing countries grow rapidly due to the foresight concept of long term pl...