Bologna. "The trouble with our time is that the future is no longer what it once was." The French poet and philosopher Paul Valéry wrote this over a century ago, but the aphorism is more relevant than ever in this era of great historical, economic, and social upheaval, dominated by the here and now.
So what is the future? And does it still exist as an ideal space in which to project expectations for a better tomorrow? The answer is (generally speaking) yes, as confirmed by the experiment conducted last year by the Marchesini Group in Bologna to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Pianoro-based company, one of the world's leading manufacturers of packaging machinery.
Nearly 5.000 people entered the Future Box, the multimedia installation set up in Bologna's Piazza Maggiore from September 18th to 22nd, and another thousand answered questions online on the Portal of the Future for a large-scale collective test. To prove what? That there is more to the future.
The collected data was analyzed with the help of the Italian Institute for the Future and the University of Bologna (specifically, the Marconi Institute for Creativity): as in the Marvel comics multiverse, the variations multiply, the gaze lengthens and shortens inversely with age or is distorted by biases. A perspective that risks being disorienting, but which, as the Marchesini Group points out, should not be frightening.
For this reason, the Bologna-based company, together with the Marchesini Act Foundation, is returning with a new event. This isn't a one-off initiative, but an annual event to do something communities are perhaps no longer accustomed to: reflecting on the future. "Act Now. Atelier dei Futuri: Small gestures today that change tomorrow's history" will take place at the Marchesini Group headquarters in Pianoro on October 1st, starting at 5:30 pm.
"We'd like to try to break down the wall of fear of an uncertain future: the future is uncertain by its very nature, but we want to try to be less afraid of it by sharing our ideas. So we've decided to hold an event on October 1st, called 'Act Now,' where we'll reflect on the future and also make some commitments," explains Valentina Marchesini.
Optimism, after all, is almost mandatory. On the Portal of the Future, for example, from the 986 responses provided online, it emerged that, for the majority of people, the future is perceived positively. However, there is no single definition: everyone focuses on different aspects, demonstrating how personal and multifaceted the concept of the future is. In general, we live in a society that tends not to think about the future or does so in a confused, uncertain, and fragmented way.
"Thinking about the future, or rather, futures, is not a common activity: one of the most surprising findings was that younger people are those who have a more short-term vision of the future. Meanwhile, older people are able to interpret the future as the next century," explains Giovanni Emanuele Corazza, full professor in the Alma Mater's Department of Engineering and founder of the Marconi Institute for Creativity.
"All of this is associated with a certain uncertainty: we live in an age of uncertainty, which is also characterized by the acronym 'VUCA', which stands for 'volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous,' and making decisions in this historical phase has become increasingly difficult. This is accompanied by biases, i.e., standard ways of thinking about the future and heuristics, shortcuts that we use," Corazza observes.
"The individual future is generally projected positively, and many people think about social aspects, so the well-being not only of individuals but of the population is indeed a priority for many. One of the most frequent projections is that of a future in which environmental sustainability is guaranteed for all.
Let's say that these last decades have trained the population to think about the problems of climate change and the experiences, even dramatic ones, due to increasingly frequent very strong meteorological events, mean that this is indeed a very heartfelt priority", certifies the professor.
Studying the future is a discipline called Future Literacy or Future Studies. The second level is foresight, that is, the ability to open up a range of alternative futures, even significantly different from those everyone expects, thus admitting the possibility of what are called black swans.
The need to navigate uncertainty isn't typically taught in schools, but initiatives like the Marchesini Group's can take a first step in this direction—that is, seeing alternatives not as threats, but as opportunities," observes Corazza.
"As we celebrated our fiftieth anniversary, we decided we didn't like to dwell on the past, but wanted to think about the next 50 years. So we led the community, our extended community, in trying to reflect on the coming years, on the future," says Marchesini.
"Everyone can sail when the sea is calm. When it gets rough, you either know how to navigate it or you're in serious danger. Today, as with Covid, we're in the same stormy sea: you have to navigate it; you can't escape it, you have to stay in it. It's certainly a difficult time, but we have, as a company and as a community, all the tools to get through it," he concludes.
Nicoletta Boldrini, journalist, communicator, and expert in Futures Studies, will kick off 'Act Now'. She will lead participants on a new interactive and inspirational journey, guided by Futures Thinking, a discipline for structured thinking about the future. This will be followed by a workshop, a sort of collective game that will help people translate their imagination into responsibility and action in the present.
