OLLIE COTSAFTIS (FRA/AUS)
INDUSTRY FELLOW, RMIT UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF DESIGN
Dr Olivier Cotsaftis is a post-disciplinary designer navigating the spaces between presents, futures, fictions and realities. At RMIT University School of Design, his research addresses climate resilience and social innovation in urban heterotopias. Ollie is also the founder and creative director of future ensemble studio and the co-founder of Speculative Futures Melbourne—the Melbourne Chapter of The Design Futures Initiative.
BREAK-OUT STREAM: SUBVERSIVE DESIGN (2019)
How do you feel about design? Is it safe? Today’s designers are largely focused on designing for a singular, understood reality in which they design for immediate problems and opportunities. As unconscious servants to a dominant worldview, are we perpetuating these self-fulfilling prophecies? The role of designers should not only be to design within societies dominant frameworks but also to question these limited horizons and design alternatives. How are we – designers, artists, technologists, makers, and non-designers – pushing boundaries and shaping futures?
TALK: 'SPECULATIVE REALITIES' (2018)
The Earth was flat until it wasn’t. If reality is what we believe to be true, speculation helps us explore alternate realities we could be living in, and somewhere probably do. What does Melbourne feel like in a parallel universe? From ancient Rome to Bjarke Ingels’ Mars Simulation City project, join Melbourne Speculative Futures to explore humanity’s desire to design the ideal city. Originally founded in San Francisco, Speculative Futures is an international group for those interested in speculative design, design fiction, futurism, science fiction and visionary approaches to help us imagine change.
