Event dates: 27-28 August 2024, workshops and master classes on 29 August

Event venue: Slagthuset

Organizer: Media Evolution, a Swedish member-owned nonprofit

Honoraria and Expenses: Media Evolution are happy to cover RT economy speaker travel to and accommodation in Malmö, and offers a very non-profit-sized speaker honoraria on request.

History: held since 2011 and loosely curated around business, culture, and tech.

Participants: ~1000 (+40 speakers) from tech, business, arts and humanities, from all over the world

Previous speakers include: Ovetta Sampson (Google), Cassie Robinson (Joseph Rowntree Foundation), Sasha Costanza-Chock (Design Justice), James Beacham (CERN), Guy Standing (Economist), Paola Antonelli (MoMa), Hillary Juma (Mozilla), James Bridle (Author), Kate Darling (MIT Media Lab), Alice Rawsthorn (Design Emergency), Monika Bielskyte, (Futurist); Maya Man (AI artist), Indy Johar (Dark Matter Labs), Lisa Mosconi (Neuroscientist), Liam Young (Speculative architect), Christina Agapakis (Gingko Bioworks); [+ 200 more in our video archive]

Open Access: We’re committed to making the local gathering accessible to a global community. Speakers’ presentations are live-streamed and shared in our video archive.

The Conference curatorial team will review proposals and nominations using the following guidelines and and principles. We’re especially looking for perspectives, practices, or projects that demonstrate a novel or action-oriented approach that’s relevant to the themes and topics described below, as well as to Media Evolution’s research agendas: humans and our technologies, humans and our systems, and building inclusive, just futures together.

To propose a talk, workshop or experience—or to nominate someone—proposals should include the following:

Talk title

Abstract: Outline the proposed topic or presentation, including any outcomes participants should walk away with (reflections, insights, quotes, mindsets, tools, skills, abilities, etc).

Relevance and novelty: Show how the presentation or experience relates to and/or adds novelty to The Conference 2024 themes, topics, or research agendas listed.

Format: Specify if proposal is for a session (15mins + session Q&A ), a keynote (45mins+keynote Q&A), an interactive workshop or master class (max 2 hours), or an experience in the venue.

Speaker Bio: Provide a brief overview of speaker background and expertise, plus links to any social media, previous talks or other speaking engagements

Review and Response: We will only review proposals submitted using the form on this page. This open call closes 25 March 2024. All submissions will receive a response, regardless of status, by April 29th.

This year’s curatorial palette is inspired (as always) by Donna Haraway’s prescient quote from her “Cyborg Manifesto,” published in 1991, more than 30 years ago:

“Technology is not neutral. We're inside of what we make, and it's inside of us. We're living in a world of connections—and it matters which ones get made and unmade.”

Themes

Broad themes we’re particularly keen to explore in 2024 include time and trust, hindsight and foresight, metacognition and ancient intelligences, localisation and small language models, materiality and rewilding futures, and undesigning 20th century systems.

Sample Topics

Some examples of the topics we’ll use to tease out these themes are below. This isn’t an exhaustive list, so if you work in areas you don’t see here—or if you work in a cross-section of them!—we’d love to hear from you. The more unexpected the angle, the better.

• Late-stage digitalisation: recent findings on economic and ecological impacts of web3, blockchain, LLM, A(G)I & ethical entanglement with (green) transitions, privacy, ownership and security

• Infrastructural commons: how we make and un-make the scaffolding of our systems to be shared, inclusive, foundational, interoperable, and publicly accountable (in hard, soft, digital and natural/green infrastructures)

• Time, wisdom and trust: histories, philosophies and psychologies of trust and time in media, business, technology and society that highlight the connections between our pasts and the plurality of our futures

• Institutions in transition: updating the “OS” of modern society; rewiring the legal, policy, economic, educational, health and spiritual frameworks that were built for another (industrial) age

• Rewilding us: re-entwining humans and our collective imagination with the natural and non-human environment; biomimicry and ecologically-inspired design, adaptation and evolution; inclusive food and agricultural systems, urban and rural development

• Learning how to learn: metacognition, popular education, and reclaiming embodied wisdom; encoding ethical imagination into our work, systems and technologies

This year’s speakers will also deepen our local community’s exploration of the following topics, hosted as part of Media Evolution’s Collaborative Foresight practice. Speaker proposals that inspire our community to go from future imagination to present action in these topics are also welcome:

• Futures of Digital Work

• Futures of Sound and Song

• Futures We Build

There are many reasons to participate as a speaker at our small-but-mighty gathering in southern Sweden. Some of our favourite reasons are below.

Hyphenates Welcome: Scientist-artist, founder-farmer, academic-adjacent, digital-chef, social worker-designer, dancer-leader - The Conference 2024 has a reputation for hosting speakers who offer unexpected angles to business-as-usual.

In-person, in Malmö: We stoke kinship amongst like-minded individuals and potential collaborators in a stimulating space, and help shape a gathering that’s intentionally serendipitous, purposefully playful, and very much situated in vibrant Malmö, Sweden.

Warm Welcome (“Varmt Välkommen”): “…I've never been to a conference that felt so diverse yet interconnected at the same time. Literally every conversation on- and off-stage felt like the universe had hand-picked the people that needed to meet. Apart from that, the whole organisation was brilliant and I felt very well taken care of as a speaker. Travel planning, accommodation, stage technology, and side-events for speakers to connect, everything was just perfect. Just to give one example: Martin Thörnkvist picked me up personally from the night train at 7 in the morning and walked me to the hotel to make sure the room was ready for an early check-in (it was, because he had also checked with the hotel personally the day before - how thoughtful!!)” - 2023 The Conference speaker Marie Kilg, Innovation at Deutsche Welle

Convivial hosting and compensation: As a small, member-owned non-profit, we do our best to honor the time and energy speakers give us by covering travel to and 4 nights’ accommodation in Malmö, and an honorarium, on request. This has been anywhere from 500€-1000€, with fee priority given to artists, independent creatives, and students.

Originality and Sales Pitches

The Conference seeks original rather than recycled presentations. With the exception of authors speaking about their book, we do not accept talk proposals from speakers wishing to make product or service pitches. When submitting a proposal, you have to confirm your talk is not a sales or product pitch and the talk isn’t linked to an indirect sales channel. We offer other opportunities for partnerships and promotion during The Conference. If you have questions, please email us for more details at theconference@mediaevolution.se.

Curatorial Principles

Futures in the plural:
Malmö has an incredibly diverse community from all over the globe, and we acknowledge the impact that plurality of lived experiences has on shaping our futures. We prioritise inclusion and connection in our curation, in the projects and stories showcased on stage, and in the participant experience (see our code of conduct for more). We especially encourage speakers from the global majority and underrepresented communities to submit a proposal.

Walk the talk:
We aim to host speakers and content that inspire and that help us bridge the inspiration-action gap, post-gathering. We’re especially looking for practitioners, tactical tips, use cases, evidence-based resources, real-world experience, and actionable take-aways in talk proposals.

Willing over winning :
A tenet of The Conference since its inception, we look for speakers that demonstrate commitment to making research open access, and who seek to share and co-create knowledge by making their work, tools and resources accessible to the public.

Additional Information

• The content presented at The Conference is in English. We welcome proposals for talks in other languages (including sign languages) that include guidance on any translation and interpretation needs.

• We welcome proposals from non-EU speakers representing the global majority. We are happy to provide an invitation letter if accepted, and can support the visa application process (with some limitations). See the Swedish Migration Agency website for more information on getting visas to attend a conference in Sweden.

• If you are a business looking to participate, please see email martin@mediaevolution.se.

• We reserve the right to disinvite any speaker, whether selected from speaker submissions, invited, or otherwise selected if that speaker is in violation of our code of conduct.

• Speakers receive 1 (one) complimentary badge to The Conference. Additional passes are available for discounted purchase.