Abstract

From future-making to vision rhetoric, literature has introduced and reinvigorated a plethora of concepts to explain how imagined futures come about and how they become performative for organizational strategies, policy interventions, or environmental and social movements. It has also amassed a wealth of different non-verbal and multimodal means through which imagined futures are both envisioned and enabled: from sketches, charts, and timelines to AI-generated images or materialized prototypes. Despite growing interest in the use of visual, material, or spatial modes—as well as their combinations as multimodal means—emerging insights into their role for research on the future remain fragmented. This panel symposium seeks to initiate a debate among different approaches about what kinds of non-verbal and multimodal approaches are out there, what qualities they each offer, and how they can advance our conceptual understanding of imagining and championing action for imagined futures.

Please come and join us for insights into visual, material, spatial, and multimodal approaches to studying the future on Tuesday, August 13, 9:45AM – 11:15AM CT at Fairmont Chicago, Embassy Room.

Panelists

• Diane-Laure Arjaliès | Ivey Business School

• Alice Comi | Tongji University

• Santi Furnari | Bayes Business School at City, University of London & Stanford University

• Dennis Jancsary | WU Vienna

• Silviya Svejenova | Copenhagen Business School

• Jennifer Whyte | University of Sydney & Imperial College London

Organizers

• Markus Höllerer | UNSW Sydney, WU Vienna, & IAE Business School

• Ines Kuric | WU Vienna

• Luigi Mosca | Imperial College London & University of Sydney