Margaret Atwood: Practical Utopias among our supported events at the Book Festival

Edinburgh Futures Institute is thrilled to host the Book Festival this year for the first time in its new home, the restored category-A listed Old Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh on Lauriston Place.

The Edinburgh International Book Festival runs from 10 to 25 August with events taking place in some of our indoor spaces and outdoors in the south courtyard.

We are delighted to support a set of brilliant events that speak to our building and its history, shared stories from our community, and our work on topics from Futures Thinking, Ethics of Data and AI, and Digital Cultural Heritage.

Many of our supported events connect with the Book Festival’s theme, ‘Future Tense’, which explores how future-oriented and long-term thinking can bring imagination and perspective to urgent and complex issues.

Practical Utopias

We are honoured to support a conversation with acclaimed writer Margaret Atwood on the first day of the festival, titled ‘Practical Utopias – An Exploration of the Possible.’

Atwood will appear remotely, illuminating the concept of ‘Practical Utopias’ that has gripped her extraordinary imagination of late, offering a way forward from the most intractable challenges of our time. The remote element of Atwood’s event delivered to the live festival audience aligns strongly with the Futures Institute’s commitment to ‘fusion’ (in-person and online) events.

The event will be chaired by bestselling novelist and 2017 Women’s Prize for Fiction winner, Naomi Alderman, who has written games including ‘Zombies, Run!’ and has presented ‘Science Stories’ on BBC R4, including a story about the Edinburgh Seven – the first women to ever matriculate in a British university.

Complementing Atwood’s event is a ‘Practical Utopias’ workshop on 11 August led by Jennifer Williams, Futures Institute Creative Projects Manager and Utopia Lab programme director.

The workshop explores how the future can inspire and influence our present using Atwood’s framework of thinking about practical utopias, and based on principles of collaboration, futures thinking, and innovation.

Memories of the Old Royal Infirmary

To celebrate the history of our building as the Book Festival’s new home, we are supporting the Words from the Wards project, which collected stories about the Old Royal Infirmary from the public in Spring 2024.

Words from the Wards performances will run throughout the festival, each event featuring special author guests. The performances will share experiences and memories of healing, treating, and repairing. One story of repair is by Rab Bennetts, co-founder of Bennetts Associates, the architects for the Edinburgh Futures Institute redevelopment.

The Futures Institute’s ‘Recycling a Hospital’ project team will also lead four Spirit Case Tours inside the building during the festival. This interdisciplinary arts project created a beautiful installation that honours the memory of the Old Royal Infirmary.

The Spirit Case was created out of materials that were once part of the infirmary: slates from the roof, pine wood from the floor joists and elm wood from a tree that once stood in the grounds.

Data and Artificial Intelligence

Artificial Intelligence, Data and Complex Systems is one of the sub-themes of Future Tense and two events feature Professor Shannon Vallor, Director of the Institute’s Centre for Technomoral Futures and Chair in the Ethics of Data and AI.

Professor Vallor joins a powerhouse panel of authors in the Book Festival’s gala event on 10 August, followed by another event where she will discuss AI’s real and imagined effects alongside novelist Anton Hur in ‘The Unexpected Consequence of Progress.’

The Centre for Data, Culture and Society, based at the Futures Institute, is supporting an event with Financial Times AI editor Madhumita Murgia and artist and academic Georgina Voss titled ‘The Systems Which Govern Us’ on 12 August, who will discuss the disorienting extent to which we are governed by AI and complex systems with Dr Pip Thornton.

Dr Pip Thornton will also lead two events linked to projects supported by the Bridging Responsible AI Divides (BRAID) programme based at the Futures Institute: ‘Writing the Wrongs of AI’ and ‘Page Against the Machine: Writing in the Age of Artificial Intelligence.

Connecting the past and the future

The careful and sensitive restoration of the former Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh building has been a major project for the University and the City over the last eight years. Many visitors to the building will remember it had lain for years in poor condition.

Having witnessed the Old Royal Infirmary’s remarkable transformation into the Futures Institute building, we are looking forward to hearing James Crawford speak about his latest work exploring lost and abandoned buildings in another event we are supporting titled ‘Traces of the Past.’ We are also excited to get to know James in his new role as Chair of the Board of Directors of the Book Festival.

Patricia Erskine, Director of Culture and Communities at the Futures Institute said:

“We are all incredibly excited that the Book Festival is making Edinburgh Futures Institute its new home. This is the next chapter in a long and happy partnership between the Book Festival and the University. We share a love of ideas and a commitment to fostering dialogue across boundaries on the complex challenges facing the world. ‘Future Tense’ perfectly describes that sense of change about to happen. It’s the beginning of a new era for both our organisations, and we’re poised, ready to jump. Let’s go!”