Speculative Futures Milan is the Italian chapter of Speculative Futures community organised by the Design Futures Initiative, a non-profit organisation based in San Francisco. Speculative Futures Milan wants to promote future literacy and futures-oriented disciplines among people, communities and organisations.
The chapter began in 2019 with Alex Cascarano, Alex Di Benedetto, Pietro Curtolillo, and Giovanni Caruso as founders. At the end of 2019, Silvio Cioni joined the team. Since mid 2021, Giovanni Caruso & Silvio Cioni have led the chapter.
While the chapter started as a local event, all the operations have been moved online due to the pandemic. From time to time, the chapter has also helped educational organizations with research projects. All events are free.
On LinkedIn, the Speculative Futures Milan page is one of the most popular profiles for speculative design and design futures.
As curator of this online space, Giovanni Caruso’s commitment to selecting critical and weird content – weak signals, on-the-verge essays, and critical use cases – has helped grow a group of over 4,000 engaged followers worldwide – from students to artists, from designers to businesses, and innovation executives.
Past events
The Future Prompt. How Design is Transforming Design, April 2023. Organized for Domus Academy as part of its events for the Milan Design Week 2023 – Guests: Viraj Joshi, Alexandra Mihai, Simone Rebaudengo, Tobias Revell
Talk with Julian Bleecker, Nov 30, 2022 – Guests: Julian Bleecker (Near Future Laboratory), Gabriele Ferri (Eindhoven University of Technology)
Collecting Everyday Archetypes, Nov 17, 2022 – Guest: Isabella Bruno
“Design after Capitalism.” Book talk & Discussion, Jun 17, 2022 – Guest: Matthew Wizinsky
The Critical Catalyst Workshop, Apr 22, 2022 – Guest: Ammer Harb – Politecnico di Milano
Disco school: plan the unplannable, Dec 20, 2021 – Guests: Matt Ward, Jimmy Loizeau, Sara Božanić, Ivica Mitrović, Vera Fearns, Global Chapters Lead of the Design Futures Initiative, Aireen Grace Andal, Einar Sneve Martinussen
Designing for more than Human Futures, Nov 9, 2021 – Guests: Juliana Schneider, Maja Dika
Black Panther and the Death of Sci-Fi Interfaces, Jun 29, 2021 – Guest: Chris Noessel
The Age of Autonomous Commerce (aCommerce), Jun 9, 2021 – Guest: Cecilia Mosze Tham
Making Critical (More-than-human) Futures, May 25th, 2021 – Guest: Laura Forlano
Beyond Speculative Design: Past. Present-Future, Mar 24, 2021 – Guests: Ivica Mitrović, James Auger, Michael Smyth, Ingi Helgason, Enrique Encinas, Salvatore Iaconesi, Matt Ward, Julian Hanna
Speculative Futures, Mar 3, 2021 – Guests: Ivica Mitrović, Karla Paniagua, Enrique Encinas, Paolo Cardini, Sara Božanić,
Science fiction did not predict this. Dec 10th, 2020 – Guest: Riccardo Fassone
Conversation from the futures, Jul 9, 2020 – Guest: Angelica Fontana, Yulia Besplemennova, Gabriele Ferri
Preferable Worlds, Jun 4, 2020 – Guest: Jorge Camacho
Futures Series 20 – Actionable Futures Toolkit Workshop, Feb 8, 2020 – Guest: Sami Niemela
Futures Series 20 – Stuart Candy, Feb 3, 2020 – Guest: Stuart Candy
Futurish. A generative card deck workshop, Dec 10, 2019 – Guests: Silvio Cioni, Angelica Fontana
Il futuro come strumento educativo, Jun 6th, 2019 Guest: Cristina Pozzi
This is Milan Speculative Futures, Apr 11, 2019 Guest: Simone Rebaudengo