FUTURE COAST (CREATED BY KEN EKLUND)

VOICEMAILS FROM POSSIBLY CLIMATE CHANGED FUTURES

So how does the game work?

A collaborative, educational, transmedia storytelling game

Educational project through Columbia University and the National Science Foundation

Authentic fiction: “Authentic in this context means multi-authored, textured in the way only diverse minds can supply; but also reality-based, painting reality within a playfully fictional frame” – Ken Eklund

“As a storyteller, as long as you keep it your story, your audience won’t regard it as their story—and will be less affected by it” –Ken Eklund

Voicemails for Effective Climate Change Communication?

“ The challenge with climate change as a subject is the polarized state of its discussion. It’s made people wary of engaging with anything that has the global warming or climate change label. Less well recognized, it’s also disenfranchised people from the story—a scorched-earth war of talking points with no safe place left for the common person to venture hopes and fears or express what they know” – Ken Eklund

Creating Voicemails from the Future1. Find a partner. 2. Each of you choose a year, from 2020-2065, and imagine what life will

be like for someone in that year in a particular place. Think of an idea for a voicemail of that fictional future person calling someone he/she knows.

3. What story will your voicemail tell? What details will make us believe this recording comes 10, 20, 30, 40, 50 years from now? You can consult your Introduction to Climate Change volume for ideas, or think about the cli-fi genre conventions we brainstormed in class last week.

4. Work with your partner to make the script seem like an “authentic” and “realistic” voicemail. Do this by considering the ways, great and small, that a future person might be living differently. How would those differences show up in a voicemail message?

5. Rehearse your voicemails with your partner.6. Go someplace quiet to record your voicemail messages; follow the

instructions on the Future Coast hotline: 321-732-6278

Remember: This is a game. Have fun with it! You can record and submit as many voicemails as you want; the more the better!

PIELC at the UO, an amazing opportunity: REQUIRED: This Friday we will be meeting for

class in the EMU ballroom for a keynote address featuring Bill McKibben as part of the UO PIELC. 11:45-1:45. If possible, please arrive at 11:45 and find me in the back of the room.

EXTRA CREDIT: Attend the PIELC Thursday night keynote, 6:15-8:30 PM and, by the end of the weekend, post an EXTRA 500 word blog post that reflects on your experience attending the talk and links the talk in some way to our course material. http://pielc.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/2015-PIE

LC-Brochure_13.pdf

Final required blog post (due by this Sunday evening), options:

1) Consider the NYTimes Room for Debate article on Cli-Fi in the context of any of the works we have read thus far this term or in the context of your own final project.

2) Reflect and respond to the Bill McKibben keynote address on Friday, connecting his talk to anything we have discussed, read, or that you’ve written about previously this term.

3) Future Coast and possible connections to other examples of Cli-Fi.

4) Have an extended conversation about climate change or Cli-Fi with a family member or friend from outside the class and reflect on the experience.

Debrief

What was it like creating and recording these voicemails?

Did anything about the process help in thinking about or imagining changes ahead in the future?

Voicemails are Stories

Rich Familiar and accessible Important yet ephemeral Personal yet public/shared

Future Coast as Cli-Fi?

“ In a wider sense this project fits into the emerging genre of ‘cli-fi,’ climate fiction.”

- Ken Eklund

Debrief 2

How is the “Future Coast experience” different from reading a “cli-fi” short story, or a novel, or a scientific forecast about the future? How is it similar?

Future Coast

Most climate change

communication:Future Coast:

Serious Global Abstract Polarized Expert-driven (by

those in power) Disempowering

Makes fun Localizes Personalizes Depoliticizes Democratizes Empowers

The game continues… the future of Future Coast

Stories spawn stories FutureCoaster videos and blogs Podcast Art exhibits The next chronofall coming soon