“The future will always be more messy than we imagine.” –Jamais Cascio

Future Preparedness explores how to prototype a range of possible futures and experience them as real, physical situations. By immersing ourselves in these situations, that we call future 'prehearsals' or 'pre-enactments', we cultivate mindsets and behaviours that can help us adapt to diverse and unpredictable futures. This case study builds on futurist scenario planning and ancient meditation practices, as well as age-old sideshows, anachronistic re-enactments and contemporary disaster drills. We sketch our future lives as improvised, participatory experiences and test them in a number of near future scenarios.

The Resilients and their activities informing the Future Preparedness case study:

• Experiments for Home Futurists: FoAM's fieldwork on scenario planning and future prehearsals
• Transiency of a Contemporary Journeyman: Dougald Hine on a quest for resilience as the Resilients' “artist in transience”
• transgenerational_residency: The Simpsons (Mark, Leah, Scarlet and Delilah) as a “Family in Residence” where FoAM in Brussels transforms from a cultural laboratory to a 21st century clan, celebrating the first Rocket Boat Day
• Collective Introspection in the Naikan Retreat: Helga Hartl assisted by Christina Stadlbauer conduct a silent retreat at the FoAM studio, investigating the effect of the naikan practice on collaboration and communication in the working environment
• Science, crafts and emerging technologies in Mathematickal Arts Workshop: Carole Collet and Tim Boykett bring together disparate disciplines - mathematics, textile design and tangible programming - to explore whether borrowing from each other's fields can increase their resilience.
• resilients_salons: a series of conversations about topics related to cultural resilience
• Resilients Apprentice: Anthropologist Coralie Stalberg's in a creative apprenticeship investigating the resilience of re-use and repair techniques in war-time clothing.

• scenario symphony
• temporal model
• From Pan to Panarchy