Throughout the weekend of November 23rd and 24th, Radio National will be opening “a window onto the future” with a variety of programs looking at different aspects of where society may be heading – from the evolutionary to the visionary.
Linking the programs will be Radio National presenters Michael Cathcart on Saturday and Natasha Mitchell on Sunday. Each afternoon will see a change in timing to much of the regular Radio National schedule with some programs being replaced altogether.
Full details of the weekend schedule will be available from next Wednesday 20th November at the special Future Weekend website: www.abc.net.au/rn/future.
The website will provide opportunities to interact with listeners and program makers via forums, listen to audio and visit related sites via links.
The Future Weekend on-air highlights include:
On Saturday, at 1pm The Quiz poses questions about two iconographic books about utopias/ dystopias, George Orwell’s 1984 and Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World.
At 2pm, Radio Eye’s ‘mockumentary’ ‘The Dribble Down Effect’ is a fast-forward into the near future where child-care centres struggle to survive the competition of robot carers called ‘Robbies’ and the ‘Child Free Workplace Agreement’ is in force. Eurydice Aroney’s clever feature had several listeners calling in when it first aired earlier this year, deceived by its realism. Many were worried that society had now gone too far and asked how could they protest this new innovation!
At 4pm, Phillip Adams hosts a forum about ‘The Future of Genetic Engineering’ featuring some of the world’s leading thinkers in this field including Greg Stock author “Redesigning Humans”.
On Sunday at 10am, Julie Copeland talks to one of the most visionary artists of our time, Australian-based Stelarc, discussing the question of how in the future will we tell humans from machines?
And at 6pm, Rachael Kohn looks at ‘The Future Of Religion’ on The Spirit of Things. Since ancient times the demise of religion has been foreshadowed, yet religion has persisted despite all the doomsayers. Laurence Iannaccone (George Mason University, Washington DC) examines the validity of recent predictions of increasing secularisation. David Thompson (Cambridge University) discusses the cultural and political components of religious identity in Europe and the UK.
The weekend will be also peppered by short pieces including film reviews – Radio National Nightclub’s Julie Rigg reviews three films each with a distinct vision of the future – Metropolis (1927), Mad Max (1979), and Strange Days (1995).
Other features are: Fur and Sheen – a four-part drama: Zoe Carides and Bogdan Koca are Stella and George, two friends confronting a near future world of technological dreams and mutating structures. Sci-fi Fictions – written and read by authors such as Arthur C. Clarke. Future Forecasts – factual vignettes on climate change, food production, ecology and health. Emotional machines – a mini-feature about the current research and modelling, which will make computers more emotional.