What if it was possible to build actual time machines, and use them to transport people to the near future that resulted from us doing everything we could possibly have done, the future that turned out OK? Might it be that that experience is what generates in people the deep longing required to actually make it a reality?
In 2020 climate activist and Transition Network cofounder Rob Hopkins started a podcast. In each episode, Hopkins and his guests would “time travel” together to the year 2030—walk down its imagined future streets, talk with imagined future neighbours, visit imagined future local businesses. While Rob’s guests came from all walks of life—economists, politicians, bakers, comedians, novelists and more—they all shared a willingness to suspend their worries about the future long enough to mentally inhabit and then describe a world they were thrilled to be a part of.
This simple exercise of visiting a positive future forced Rob to rethink the work he’d been doing as a climate activist for decades. In his book "How to Fall in Love with the Future" Rob uses positive visions of the future to inspire positive change and brings essential new thinking to anyone overwhelmed with dread and anxiety for the future. In parallel to this, Rob began working with ambient musician Mr Kit to create musical soundscapes built from various field recordings made during trips into the future.
The eight tracks they created represent a key moment in the history of recorded music, the first release of actual recordings from the future, captured by two intrepid time travellers thanks to some remarkable quantum time travelling technologies developed in a small town in the southwest of England. It is as historic a moment as the first telephone call, the invention of the internet, the first telegram.
And now they have built a live show, an immersive time portal. In it, they use that same technology to transport audiences from the present and into the near future that resulted from our doing everything we could possibly have done to create a kinder, more equal future in response to the climate crisis. They will take you to visit car-free neighbourhoods, bicycle rush hours, more vibrant communities, landscapes reshaped by beavers, underground mushroom farms and more.
The future must enter into us a long time before it happens, and this powerful technology makes this possible. Their hope is that the impact of people hearing those recordings will be one of the key things that tips the people into action on the scale required. The world needs this now more than it ever has. All the money raised will go towards taking this show to as many people and places in the world as possible. It’s time to help people fall in love with the future.