Musicians and futurists explore digital drivers of change

Futures Worldbuilding: Digital Literacy for Creativity, a workshop held on August 20 at the MUTEK Forum in Montreal, gave participants an immersive two-hour experience, facilitated by musicians and futurists, where they were presented with digital drivers of change, exploring hot topics such as AI, algorithms and more. 

The workshop was designed by OCAD University’s affiliated Super Ordinary Lab, led by Associate Professor Dr. Suzanne Stein and produced by Envision Management & Production. 

The workshop drew insights from the outcomes of MUTEK market’s digital workshop in June to push the creative community beyond dystopian visions and binary limitations. 

“Through collective futures thinking, designed to unearth new insights, participants engaged in an empowering world-building exercise in keeping the Pathwaves project’s original mission at heart: empowering Canadian artists to make lifelong careers more possible and equitable,” explains Dr. Stein.

Pathwaves was created in response to musicians not being at the decision-making table as digital technologies were evolving, and subsequently, not benefiting equitably from the digital transformation of the industry

Workshop facilitators included Strategic Foresight and Innovation graduate students and alums Fran Quintero Rawlings, Rebecca Black and Ziyan Hossain. The Envision Management team included Ryhna Thompson (President), Patti Schmidt, Jenner Duffin and Ida Toninato.