Predictions

Mél Hogan, Stefan Laser & Edward Ongweso Jr.

Predictions is a by-invitation collection of predictions.

Coming soon.

Predictions are meant to be claims about the future that come true. Even when they don't come true, which is usually the case, predictions allow for action. How individuals make predictions varies. Some might systematically observe and document a phenomenon in order to more accurately anticipate possible outcomes, others might simply feel it out based on prior experiences, narratives or momentums that they’ve been compelled by. Predictions can be attempted on any number of topics, such as election outcomes, music tastes, climate disasters, etc. Often predictions are made using measurements and statistics, and increasingly, with large datasets. With the advent of computing, and the emotional investments we’ve made in statistics, there’s a sense that with more data points we’re better able to predict “the future” through technology (like AI), and usually on a more personalized granular level, as promised with genomics. With more capital put into prediction technologies of all kinds, there’s also more surveillance and control over society, and more relinquishing attention, desire, and health, to the calculating machines. 

This collection is a collective experiment in future-making and -unmaking. We deliberately target writers with disciplinary backgrounds in which predictions are uncommon due to positivist criticism. We pose the provocative question of what happens when we progressively appropriate the liberties of data prediction. Sci-fi can be an important resource, but it doesn't have to be.

For this project we are inviting people to make predictions about “the future”, while also – importantly – thwarting the premise of prediction as a way to offer up a collective critique of investments made in understanding time, and the future, as technologically-determined. Ideally, this will be the first in a series of predictions booklets, possibly also available online. You will be invited again in a few years to reflect on the prediction you made, and write about it for the next iteration of the collection. In this way, the project is durational. This is optional, considering everyone's individual uncertainties. Because the future is uncertain, this project in itself attempts to build a long-lasting conversation through community-building. 

As the editors, we are critical scholars, activists, journalists, and practitioners exploring the idea of prediction because we don’t want future possibilities left to the white masculinist billionaire class and technocrats to define. We invite you to think, feel, and write about one specific thing in terms of its legacy, current momentum and probable outcomes – being attentive to the dynamic and multiple facets of the future, but all the while recognizing that humans are terrible at predictions. Think of surviving, leaving, coming back, gaming, dissolving, making fun of, and other modes of emerging.