Future Coast

Is Future Coast realistic?

Jenna Foley 5 Comments

I think that the exercise we did with Future Coast was very interesting in the sense that we got to see and hear different scenarios that could possibly happen in the future. One aspect that I thought made this more realistic was hearing people’s voices and the emotion that came out of some of them. It was also very fun figuring out a scenario and making the actual phone call. But I had some thoughts that went through my head as we were doing this that made me question if the Future Coast project was realistic.

I know that the Future Coast project is to make people aware of climate change and what might happen in the future. But, it made me wonder just about technology in general. None of the messages were positive, and none really seemed like they could be realistic. It is hard for me to picture what could possibly happen in the future with climate change. I also started to wonder if there were even voicemails being left in the future. I feel like leaving voicemails is a dying cause since people already do not leave voicemails unless it is an important message for someone or an office call. Do we think that in the future we could look back at these voicemails and see what was said and then compare what is actually happening? I’m not really sure what it would be like, but I think it would be interesting to be able to look back on these messages and compare what was said and what is actually happening.  Contine reading →

Future Coast Brings Out Real Emotions

tashac 1 Comment

In this blog post I am going to talk about the Future Coast project that we looked at last week in class. It was definitely freaky listening to everyone’s voicemails from the future. There were a few voicemails that were more care-free that made me laugh, but there also were a few voicemails that gave me the chills and really freaked me out. The time stream that I picked out was mostly about global warming and about changes in the weather. Mostly my time stream was about the weather becoming increasingly hotter. I choose this time stream because I thought that it related most to what is happening right now for us. Even in Oregon we are having such a hotter winter term then we had last year. Last year we had two weeks where it snowed and this year it has barely rained at all. I thought that it would be interesting to make a time stream of that because I thought it would be the most relatable to everyone when they listened to it. Contine reading →

The Power of Voicemails

hvitrano@uoregon.edu 2 Comments

Future coast is a very interesting game and reminds me of geocaching. The game is to create fictional voicemails that could happen in the future. When our class was told to each create our own voicemail the first thing that came to my mind was a plague or sickness. This is an issue due to climate change because eventually there will be no hospitals functioning. This reminds me of in the short story “Diary of an Interesting Year” no one could go to hospitals because all were shut down. I think Future Coast is a great project because it leaves people a personal voicemail. The purpose of the voicemails is to explain a situation that could occur. For instance, about buying extra food incase of a disaster. Also, explains what the future could look in different years. When making a voicemail you can pick what year this message is from. I think this is cool because it shows people who don’t know anything about climate change what might happen. The voicemails are very unique because it’s a individual call. It’s usually an urgent message and the person is calling for a reason. You can hear a tone in the persons voice and can evoke emotion. The purpose of the voicemails is to create emotion and the goal is for people to react.

The voicemails are an example of cli-fi because no one knows what is actually going to happen in the future. They are hypothetical situation that people think are going to happen and with research could actually. Some people in our class made up imaginary characters and situations that were cause because of climate change. Some students talked about advanced technology and how disasters are offering. Many of us talked about floods that were going to happen and how we called to warn our loved ones. I think the voicemails send a clear message about show we want to prepare people for the future. I think if someone doesn’t know much about climate change and got a voicemail it would terrify them. I personally would be scared to listen to a voicemail from the future and think about what might happen. Most stories we have read in class have different situations that are cause by global warming. The story Odds Against Tomorrow was a fictional story about New York in the future. New York is going to experience a flood that will ruin everything. The story has imaginary characters that are trying to convey a message to be prepared for the future. I think fiction is important for everyone because gives us a sense of the future. No one on this planet can predict the future but instead can be creative and use our imagination.

I loved this activity because it was personal and I could connect with some of the voicemails. One of the voicemails was someone calling their family to say goodbye because they don’t think they will make it out of the disaster. It puts you in the shoes of someone else and you imagine if that will actually happen.

Interpretation of the Future Coast Project

Casey Leach 3 Comments

I have to admit that when I first found out that we were making voicemails from the future for this Future Coast game, I thought it was a little weird because I didn’t understand the point of it and how it would be beneficial to the players of the game. When I went outside to make my voicemail, I didn’t want anyone that wasn’t in our class to hear me because I knew they would wonder what it was that I was doing since I was talking about how we ran out of water. So I tried to go where there was the fewest number of students possible.

Although after I listened to some of the voicemails I realized that it actually was a fun, entertaining idea. Once I started listening to other people’s voicemails I felt so embarrassed because other people got really creative with their voicemails, whereas I wasn’t very creative with mine. After listening to some of the voicemails, I started to realize what the actual point of the game was. The game is about getting people to think of the future and what it will look like with climate change. So in my case, I picked the first thing that I could think of would happen in the future due to climate change and that was running out of water. I noticed that a few other people used a similar idea of being short on water, but some people chose ideas that I would have never thought of either, which was really interesting.

One other example of Cli-Fi that we talked about in class this term that I thought related very similarly to Future Coast was the Global Weirding website. I found a connection between these two because Global Weirding gets people thinking about how we will be affected by climate change in the future except rather than people coming up with their own ideas, the ideas are provided to them. They are both also interactive versions of Cli-Fi. Future Coast is a little bit more interactive than the Global Weirding website since people actually make up their own ideas of the future effects of climate change rather than having those ideas provided to them. However, I think that both versions of Cli-Fi are very beneficial to not only students, but everyone. Future Coast and Global Weirding can both be used in schools to help get students engaged with talking about climate change and the possible effects it will have on our futures, which is extremely important.  Contine reading →