Engaging Futures: Methods, Materials, Media, is a speculative, interdisciplinary multi-media project that draws on a series of methodological experiments concerning temporality, and futurity especially. The book sits at the intersection of three distinct but inter-related developments in the contemporary social sciences, arts and humanities: (i) a proliferation of interest in temporality, and especially presents and futures; (ii) the emergence of new materialist approaches to understand the entanglement of bodies and technologies; and (iii) a revived focus on methodology and method that attend to the process of research.
The book aims to:
develop a series of practice research case studies to explore how temporality is – and might be – encountered, experienced and engaged through a range of methods, materials and media;
examine the methodological opportunities and challenges that are produced through a focus on experimentation and process in the generation of data;
attend to the ways in which temporality, and especially the potential uncertainty of the future, may be engaged via different social and cultural practices, and different methods, materials and media.