Solarpunk: A Narrative Strategy, a Memetic Engine | The Stoa

I went to The Stoa last night to talk about Solarpunk, Cultural Fracking & Memetic Engines.

I gave a 30min talk followed by 30mins of really thoughtful and lively Q+A. The whole hour was really fun, I enjoyed myself. I think that comes across in the recording:

August 17th, 2021

Solarpunk is an emerging movement in speculative fiction, art, fashion and activism that seeks to answer and embody the question “what does a sustainable civilization look like, and how can we get there?”

The future is as much about today as it is tomorrow. This talk is about the de-furing impulses of mass culture, cultural fracking, atemporality, juxtaposition, futexture, and more. How can we use narrative strategies to imagine new speculative presents in order to re-future the future?

Jay Sprigett is a consultant strategist, currently specialising in the distributed web, metaverse, and world running. He works with individuals and organisations to create cohesive worlds.

In 2019 he was selected as one of WeAreEurope’s 64 Faces of Europe and is a Fellow of Royal Society of Arts. He co-founded the decentralised creative exchange guild.is and is a member of the Global Regeneration CoLab. His Solarpunk short story ‘In The Storm, A Fire’ was long listed for the BSFA 2020 Short Fiction Award.

It was really cool to be invited to The Stoa. I’d like to thank Peter for the invitation.
It’s not often that you get invited to speak on a youtube channel that you’re subscribed too. In the introduction before he hit record he mentions that he’s wanted to have me on for a long time, which I’ll admit made me blush. lol

The Stoa has recently seen appearances from friends like Other.Internet and Dougald Hine etc.

Two people have already contacted me to ask for the talk materials. If I get more requests, I’ll write it up like I did for the Rusted Chrome talk I did a few years ago.

Thanks again to Peter and The Stoa team.