Role: designer, researcher
Bio: James Auger is director of the design department at the École normale supérieure Paris-Saclay and co-director of the Centre de Recherche en Design—a collaboration between ENS and ENSCI-Les Ateliers (CRD). His work explores ways through which practice-based design research can lead to more considered and democratic technological futures. He is a proud co-founder of the Crap Futures blog.
Role: researcher, manifesto writer
Bio: Julian Hanna currently lives in The Netherlands, where he teaches Culture Studies at Tilburg University. His research focuses on critical intersections between culture, politics, and technology. The Manifesto Handbook: 95 Theses on an Incendiary Form (2020) is his latest book, along with the co-edited Beyond Speculative Design: Past-Present-Future (2021). He is a proud co-founder of the Crap Futures blog.
Role: ethnographer of futures
Bio: Laura Watts is an author, poet, and ethnographer of futures. She is an Interdisciplinary Senior Lecturer in Energy & Society at University of Edinburgh. Her research and writing explores how the future is imagined in everyday practice, and how places at the edge might make the future otherwise. She is the author of the award-winning book, Energy at the End of the World: An Orkney Islands Saga (2019), and has published works ranging from peer-reviewed graphic novel and poetry to science fiction and fanzines. More on her work at sand14.com
Role: designer, researcher
Bio: Enrique Encinas is an assistant professor at Aalborg University in Denmark. His research examines the patterns and textures formed by peoples and technologies with a critical eye and an interdisciplinary focus. He uses practice-based design approaches to examine the contested boundaries that define what is actual, what is preferable and what is possible in the realm of technological development and use.
Role: designer, researcher
Bio: Mohammed J. Ali is a PhD candidate at RMIT, living in rural Sweden. He is interested in the liminal space between the present and climate altered futures. His research is principally focused on relationships and interactions with energy and infrastructures, to imagine and create critical artefacts and ways of being which anticipate human and ecological sustainment.
Role: mathematician
Bio: Parakram Pyakurel is a lecturer at Solent University, UK. His research is primarily within the areas of sustainable infrastructure design, energy planning and policy, renewable energy systems and hydrodynamics. His work has been published in journals such as Renewable Energy, Energy Research & Social Science, and Environmental Development. He holds a PhD from Florida Atlantic University and has worked as a postdoctoral researcher in the UK and Portugal.
Role: philosopher
Bio: Greta Adamo is a postdoctoral researcher at ITI / LARSyS on the island of Madeira. She has a PhD in computer science and systems engineering from DIBRIS, University of Genoa (IT) and Fondazione Bruno Kessler (IT). As a philosopher and ontologist working in the field of sustainability, she is currently focused on understanding and conceptually defining the interactions between natural ecosystems, human societies and technologies.
Role: technologist, design researcher
Bio: Max Willis has a PhD in Information and Communication Technology from University of Trento, and an MFA in Creative Media from City University of Hong Kong. He’s interested in design speculation and community-scale interventions, sustainable island futures, exploring ocean wave energy capture and the intersections of culture and technology in marine and coastal ecosystem services.
Role: research assistant
Bio: Vitor Aguiar has a master’s degree in Electronics and Telecommunications with skills across several areas including electronics, telecommunications and smart energy networks. He is an assistant researcher at ITI / LARSyS in Madeira working on robotics, programming, 3D printing and the development of various types of sensors.
Role: research assistant
Bio: Victor Azevedo is an electronic engineer currently working at ARDITI Madeira as a digital fabrication laboratory manager. He has been involved in several projects using 3D design and fabrication with different methods, as well as using CNCs, 3D printers, laser cutters and other tools and skills he’s gained over the years. His goal is to provide technical support for new research into digital design.