Opens and Closes: the future of Edinburgh’s histories Premiere

Over two years in the making and roving from Edinburgh to New York the film is about the role of city region deals, innovation complexes, and yes, Futures Institutes, in managing urban and regional futures. It centres around seldom seen Edinburgh - think gasholders, shale bings and quarries - and pans out, all the way to New York and beyond to the technodystopias we could end up without the development of new, radically interdisciplinary methods and the pragmatic, collective and organised action of concerned actors.

This premiere screening will take place in the beautifully restored category A-listed former Infirmary building that is now home to Edinburgh Futures Institute. It will be followed by an informal conversation featuring participants in the film including Windham Campbell prize-winning author Darran Anderson, Lana Swartz and Daniel Neyland with the filmmaker Sapphire Goss and producer Liz McFall. The event will be chaired by Marion Thain, EFI’s brand new director.

Wine, kombucha and other refreshments will be served.

The event is free but you must register here.

is a British artist who works with experimental moving image and photographic processes to create an ‘analogue uncanny’. Her work has been shown widely in exhibitions, performances and events globally.

is Personal Chair in the Sociology of Markets at the University of Edinburgh and Director of Data Civics Observatory at Edinburgh Futures Institute.

Darran Anderson is author of Inventory (2021) and Imaginary Cities: A Tour of Dream Cities, Nightmare Cities, and Everywhere in Between (2015)

is Professor of Digital Futures in the Bristol University Business School. He specialises in collaborative sociotechnical research projects, often working with computer scientists and engineers to come up with new ways of working and thinking. He is the author of numerous articles exploring governance, accountability and ethics and coauthor of

is Associate Professor of Media Studies at the University of Virginia. She studies social and cultural aspects of money to understand the future of financial technology, livelihoods, financial literacy, and consumer protection in the digital economy. She is currently writing a book on scams, and is the author of ranked #12 on a list of "greatest tech books of all time" by The Verge.

is Director of the Edinburgh Futures Institute and Professor of Culture and Technology, University of Edinburgh. Before coming to Edinburgh she founded and led the Digital Futures Institute at King’s College London. She is interested particularly in the relationship between culture and technology (considering ‘technology’ in the broadest sense), and in formations of disciplinarity and interdisciplinarity. She is the author of numerous articles exploring the intersections between technology, modernity and knowledge, poetry and interdisciplinary aesthetics and a contributor to The Guardian, Times Higher Education and the Los Angeles Review of Books.

Event Venue & Nearby Stays

Edinburgh Futures Institute, The University of Edinburgh, 1 Lauriston Place, Edinburgh, United Kingdom