Futures of Sound and Song

The Eurovision Song Contest takes place in Malmö in May 2024. It’s been fifty years since ABBA took Sweden’s first victory in Eurovision, and started an unprecedented period of Swedish music exports—ranging from songwriting, to artists, to new tech. The technologies that facilitate, invite and encourage social bonding and belonging through music are evolving rapidly. Radio, television and the internet have played a pivotal role enabling social interaction through song in the 20th century.

In this Collaborative Foresight cycle, we’ll explore questions, such as:

• What technologies might bring us together in the future through song and sound in 2050?
• What impact could social sound-making, song and music platforms have on social cohesion in the future?
• Who will imagine and participate in the platforms, tools, services, and events that enhance social connection through sound and song in the 21st century?
• What new medium/media might create the ”social bonfires” for participating in social sound-making together in 2050 (e.g. American Idol, Eurovision)?

Prompted by the Eurovision Song Contest and building on our previous investigation into the Futures of Cultural and Creative Expression, Media Evolution invites the local innovation and creative community to our latest - Collaborative Foresight cycle.Using seminars and workshops to scan the signals and trends of today, we’ll deepen the conversation about gathering around and through music, and learn about the signals, trends, approaches and technologies that might enhance social bonding through song and sound in Malmö in 2050.

We’ll imagine a spectrum of tomorrows and examine the ethical implications of what we’ve collectively imagined. Then from the vantage point of our co-created futures, we’ll unpack the relationships, skills, tools and strategies needed to move towards futures that enhance social connection through sound and song.

Who can Collaborate: The future is plural! We invite interested and creative minds of all levels of experience to join us for this Collaborative Foresight cycle. We’re particularly interested in putting folks from the creative community, the business and tech spaces in the same room with academics, the public sector and people with lived experience-expertise.

You could be a web developer, a communication professional, a researcher, an interaction designer, an artist, a sound engineering professional, a community organiser or something else!

People with direct experience making music, gathering people in social events, developing and/or using sound engineering tools or streaming platforms, and UX/UI and interaction designers are very welcome. At the same time, we believe that no one is an expert in what our futures hold, and the more diverse perspectives the better.

How to Collaborate:

• Core contributor: Dive deeply into this topic as a member of a core group of changemakers. Each cycle, we ask 15-20 members of our community to share their time and perspective in a total of four full-day workshops on the topic, guided by our Collaborative Foresight facilitators. You’ll learn some new tools, gain skills and a supportive network to bring futures-thinking and strategic foresight into your work.

Note: Core contributor workshops for this cycle will be 15-16 February and 7-8 March

• Community collaborator: Join our public workshops (offered both online/URL and in-person/IRL) to contribute to compact explorations of social gathering around sound and song, as viewed through the lens of the future. As a community collaborator, you’ll gain new perspectives on the urgencies of the present and help scan for signals and trends. Bookmark this page and stay tuned for event updates.

Note: Community workshop dates for this cycle are below: 25 January 8:30-10:00: Opening Seminar 25 January 10:15-12:15: Signal Scanning – in-person workshop 28 February 8:30-12:00: Community Critique – in-person workshop 29 February 14:00-15:30: Community Critique – online workshop

How we Share: We share the insights and ideas from each Collaborative Foresight cycle in a final seminar and a final book. We’ll summarize the futures we’ve co-created in community, offer up reflections and insights from core contributors, and invite the community to continue to discourse in our next cycles at our annual gathering, The Conference.