“How inappropriate to call it Earth when it is quite clearly Ocean.”
— Arthur C. Clarke
Introducing…
Radical Ocean Futures
A collaborative #ArtScience Initiative and Experimental futuring project.
Welcome intrepid explorer of the future oceans....
This project is founded on the belief that sometimes science fiction might succeed where scientific papers fall short. It blends art and science and merges scientific fact with creative speculation. The heart of the project is four short 'Radical Ocean Futures.' These are scientifically grounded narratives of potential future oceans. Each narrative is supported by both a visual and a musical interpretation to allow multiple entry points and stimulate the imagination. The purpose of this project is to explore tools that can help us to think creatively and imaginatively about our future oceans and assess how unexpected changes, along with human responses to those changes, may play out in a complex world that is, at its heart, surprising.
This project was financed through a science communications grant from The Swedish Research Council Formas and has had significant impact. The project has been featured in WIRED, a Nature editorial, an article in The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) and was chosen as the Official artwork by the government of Sweden for the Inaugural UN Ocean Conference and displayed in the lobby of the General Assembly building at the United Nations Headquarters in New York.
As well as the Radical Ocean Futures Project, on this website you will find other examples of likeminded scientific collaborations around different dimensions of the future ocean including the Fisheries Conflict Futures project led by Jessica Spijkers and work on Imagination beyond National Jurisdiction led by Hannah Marlen Lübker & Laura Pereira. A recently added project focuses on Post-growth Imaginaries for the High Seas led by Tilde Krusberg. Further relevant scientific work will be added over time to the website to showcase the different science + storytelling approaches to the future of the ocean.
“Earth’s oceans are having a rough time right now. They’re oily, hot, acidic, full of dead fish—and their levels are rising. But even though these things are true, it can be hard to grok (or muster up the will to care about) the oceans’ subtle changes over decades. Every time you go to the beach, everything’s still as blue and salty and vast as it ever was. But these changes directly impact human life (just ask the Marshall Islands). So to make the ocean’s plight more relatable, a Swedish sustainability group is putting out a message that will hit you where it counts: right in the nerd.”
Radical Ocean Futures The Scientific Paper
Title: Radical ocean futures-scenario development using science fiction prototyping
Author team: Andrew Merrie, Patrick Keys, Marc Metian and, Henrik Österblom
Journal: Futures - The journal of policy, planning and futures studies
Article abstract
Scenarios can help individuals, communities, corporations and nations to develop a capacity for dealing with the unknown and unpredictable, or the unlikely but possible. A range of scientific methods for developing scenarios is available, but we argue that they have limited capacity to investigate complex social-ecological futures because: 1) non-linear change is rarely incorporated and: 2) they rarely involve co-evolutionary dynamics of integrated social-ecological systems. This manuscript intends to address these two concerns by applying the method of science fiction prototyping to developing scenarios for the future of global fisheries in a changing global ocean. We used an empirically informed background on existing and emerging trends in marine natural resource use and dynamics to develop four ‘radical ocean futures,' incorporating and extrapolating from existing environmental, technological, social and economic trends. We argue that the distinctive method as applied here can complement existing scenario methodologies and assist scientists in developing a holistic understanding of complex systems dynamics. The approach holds promise for making scenarios more accessible and interesting to non-academics and can be useful for developing proactive governance mechanisms.
This figure from the paper represents the scenario space. Narrative scenarios are represented in a two dimensional space and each illustration is a representation of a key defining element for each of the four ‘radical ocean futures’. These four ‘radical ocean futures’ do not represent ‘the’ future but four possible futures. The ‘collapsed to sustained’ on the horizontal axis refers to the ecological dimension and the ‘fragmented to connected’ on the vertical access refers to the societal dimension.
If you would like to read the full article (published open access under a creative commons licence) please head over to the Futures website.
Project Impact
“This submission was very powerful and inspiring. The extensive research and development is evident and the potential for influencing choices for individuals and decision-makers is high. Your submission sets a high bar for creating tangible and experiential images of the future.”
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The project has been featured in WIRED, a Nature editorial, an article in The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), was part of a Reddit AMA and featured in a number of other articles in the media. The project has also featured on a number of podcasts including in an episode of one of Sweden’s most popular podcasts ‘P3 Dystopia’ in an episode about the future Ocean entitled; ‘När havet dör.’ The project has been featured as part of a special issue of Vector, the key critical journal of the British Science Fiction Association. The project has presented in a number of high profile settings and for influential organisations including the Dubai Future Forum, The UN oceans conference and many more.
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Radical Ocean Futures was chosen as the Official artwork by the government of Sweden for the Inaugural UN Ocean Conference and displayed in the lobby of the General Assembly building at the United Nations Headquarters in New York. The Radical Ocean Futures project has also been featured in a number of international Art Exhibitions. This includes ‘Ocean Dwellers: Art, Science and Science Fiction’ at the Nordic Embassies in Berlin, ‘Critical Tide’ at the Helsinki Design Museum and, ‘Uncertain Horizons at the WAM Turku City Art Museum. The Project was also featured as part of the London Science Museum - Science Fiction: Voyage to the Edge of Imagination Exhibition.
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Radical Ocean Futures was selected as a finalist in the inaugural Falling Walls Engage Science communication Competition. Radical Ocean Futures is also the winner of the Association of Professional Futurists (APF) awards for 1) IF Award for the Most Significant Futures Work in the Imaginaries, Imaginations & Images of the Future 2) Most Significant Futures Work in the Impactful Focal Area (Impactful - noteworthy advances in the methods and practices of foresight and futures studies)
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Radical Ocean Futures has been featured as an immersive audio-visual experience during the 2024 Baltic Sea Festival at the Swedish Technology Museum. In 2025 and 2026, it will be possible to experience a standalone version at the technology museum on a selected number of occasions. In addition, the radical ocean futures stories and artwork are the foundation for an in-development Science Fiction Drama Series provisionally titled: Ocean Rising. Please contact us if you would like more information about the ongoing development process.
“Some of the scenarios painted — in both the fictional tales of the future ocean and the high-emissions scenarios of climate modellers — are something that society, scientists included, should be desperate to avoid. To do so, data and evidence remain the priority. But in a world where both are so easily trumped by a seductive (and false) counter-narrative, perhaps more researchers should also learn to tell tales as they look ahead.”
Sci-fi prototyping the future ocean
The four scenarios written as ‘sci-fi prototypes’ are built on a robust foundation of scientific knowledge, including:
1) Technological frontiers
2) Marine ecology, ocean and fisheries science
3) The global fishing and seafood industry
4) Marine management, governance and socio-economic shifts
The scenarios were developed following the method of Science-Fiction Prototyping, developed by Brian David Johnson when he was the futurist at Intel Corporation. Mr Johnson is now the futurist in residence at Arizona State University,Center for Science and the Imagination. This method is described in detail in the scientific paper published in the journal Futures.
We have linked key elements in each of the narrative scenarios to relevant peer-reviewed academic papers, news articles from reputable publications and credible websites to give you the opportunity to explore beyond Radical Ocean Futures. We wish you well on your explorations into the future oceans and the scientific work that helps us to imagine them.
