Future Tense

Remix: Technology, creation and participation.

Where ideas come from. The Extremely Large Telescope.

Our polar regions are melting. It’s a serious environmental problem. But it’s also an economic opportunity for those with a geo-political stake in our northern and southern extremes. In the Arctic, Vladimir Putin dreams of creating a shipping lane to rival the Suez Canal. While in the Antarctic, China is busy making its presence felt by cutting the ribbon on yet another new research station. But is it all more than just political manoeuvring and international point-scoring? And what are the long-term environmental implications?

In the London district of Clapham they’re going underground – literally. The Zero Carbon Food company is converting an old World War II air-raid shelter into an underground market-garden. We also meet US academic and artist Jeff Thompson, who watched all 456 episodes of US TV series Law and Order- to try and chart the last twenty years of technological evolution. And we find out about the world's first science fiction museum.

We may not use the term very much these days, but we’re living slap bang in an age of utopian yearning, according to Professor Craig Bremner. He maintains utopian thought underpins modern advertising and even future city planning. Then there’s politics. The University of Wisconsin’s Erik Olin Wright runs the Real Utopias Project. We’ll meet him and find out how utopian imagining is being refashioned as a tool for creating better political systems. (This program was originally broadcast in September 2012)

Arthur C. Clarke once declared: ‘Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic’. But does the analogy work the other way around? Techno-illusionists like Marco Tempest argue magicians need to embrace new technologies in order to stay relevant to a 21st Century audience. But can the modern illusionist become too technologically focussed?

Three very different perspectives on the future. We speak to Lee Raine, Director of the Internet Project at the Pew Research Centre about what digital life might be like in 2025.We discover why regulatory agencies play a greater role in shaping our technological future than we might think. And finally Harvard University psychologist Don Robinaugh explains why understanding more about the complicated nature of grief may help many people in our society better deal with the future.

Our relationship with photography has changed in the social media age. We take, alter, crop and share photos like never before. And we use them as badges – symbols of who we are and how we feel. Of course, the photograph has always been more than just a captured image, a simple record of times instantly passed. But in the modern era is the photo more message than memory?

Increasingly diplomats and governments are having to fight battles and defend themselves on social media. Ben Scott, one of the pioneers of America’s office of E-diplomacy says it’s the way of the future. But he and other analysts argue that digital diplomacy is far more than the likes of Twitter and Facebook. It’s about engaging with communities and ‘non-state players’ who now have a greater voice on international issues.

Silicon Valley is often held up as a meritocracy where anyone with a good idea can change the world through technological innovation. Author and academic Alice Marwick believes that Silicon Valley is actually a place that actively excludes women and people from different social and ethnic backgrounds. We also speak to Professor Michael Fraser about his idea of attaching a property right to our digital profiles. He believes that a property right would work in a similar way to copyright licensing and potentially give people more control over how their data is used. But is the idea workable?