Origins Podcast with Ryan McGranaghan artwork

Alex McDowell - A master class in worldbuilding and designing holistic spaces

Origins Podcast with Ryan McGranaghan

English - October 04, 2022 08:00 - 1 hour - 44.1 MB - ★★★★★ - 6 ratings
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Previous Episode: David Hassler - Leaping thought, authoring a life, and a spirit of passionate inquiry
Next Episode: Ed Finn - Thoughtful optimism, intellectual voyaging, and a Center for Science and the Imagination

Alex McDowell is a worldbuilder. He builds future realities to envision worlds that don't yet exist. By working across disciplines to imagine the future, his worlds inform and inspire stories and open eyes to new possibilities.

Origins Podcast website

Show Notes: 

Quaker meeting (09:40)EmpowermentThe skills of listening and gathering (11:40)The politics of your social experience (12:10)Worldbuilding"Storytelling Shapes the Future" Every world is a holistic system at multiple scalesMinority Report (22:00)Triangle of narrative design (27:00)Relationship to complex systems (27:30)Counterfactuals to explore a world (27:50)Cultivating interdisciplinary collaboration in teams (28:00)Scenius (29:00)Building enough of a framework to know what we don't know (31:00)Teaching (40:00)The literacies of worldbuildingWork collaboratively in the space of uncertaintyExperimental Design company (44:30)Great 'Askers' (49:00)Balancing curiosity and boredom (51:00)MIT Media Lab (52:00)Scott Fisher (52:30)Falling forward (55:00)Lightning round (55:15)Book: Neuromancer by William GibsonCognitive estrangementPassion: GuitarHeart sing: New language for molecular biologyScrewed up: Graphic design for record labelsFind Alex online:Twitter: @worldbldgWebsite: https://alexmcdowell.design/'Five-Cut Fridays’ five-song music playlist series  Alex’s playlist



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