Creative R&D studio for emerging technology

Interesting things happen when I'm in the room.

I listen across disciplines and connect what people are seeing, saying, and making. I give those connections form through prototypes, products, publications, experiences, workshops, worlds you can build, and always a generative conversation.

Near Future Laboratory is my creative R&D practice. I work across engineering, design, anthropology, storytelling, and production to notice emerging connections, clarify what they might mean, and give them a form people can examine.

25 years connecting creativity, technology, culture, and everyday life through products, prototypes, artifacts, experiences, and research.

Creative Futures R&D · Product and experience prototyping · Creative technology · Today's concepts to futures artifacts · Scaled manufacturing

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A man with glasses sits in front of a flip chart, appearing thoughtful during a meeting.

Selected Events

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Attendees in front of the Affleck House, Bloomfield Hills Michigan, September

Event · 2023

Imagine Harder Summit 2023

A private event and summit at a Frank Lloyd Wright House outside of Detroit facilitated by Near Future Laboratory to engage creative leaders in discussions about collaborating, coordinating, and amplifying the value imagination and the creative consciousness in order to sense into more habitable futures.

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Movie theater marquee for the documentary Eno at the Brain Dead Studios

Event · 2024

Eno.

What happens when futures work intersects the grounded circuits of meaning and material culture and not just other futures workers or foresight ‘experts’? Gary Hustwit and his generative documentary ‘Eno’, and Brian (Eno) are a kind of futurist of the best sort — they make the worlds they imagine and do so materially — and shape culture far more than the futurists who think getting a certificate in Foresight is good enough to call yourself one.

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Workshopping Design Fiction concepts from a possible product future

Event · 2012

TBD Catalog

TBD Catalog stands as the first and quintessential example of a Design Fiction project. It effectively navigated a full Design Fiction process, involving a diverse group of participants from multiple fields in a futures workshop. Together, they explored emerging trends, examined their implications, and extrapolated these insights into a potential future. The outcome was a set of speculative artifacts that embodied this future in a tangible and thought-provoking form.

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Selected Keynotes

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Keynote Presentation by Julian Bleecker

Keynote · 2022

AIGA Design Fiction Keynote 2022

I was asked to deliver a Keynote presentation at the 2022 AIGA National Conference. The presentation was a discussion of Design Fiction and it's 'Why?'. Key takeaways from the presentation were: Design fiction uses prototypes and imaginary objects to spark curiosity and conversations about possible futures; Examples like the Star Trek manual and Ikea catalog show how design fiction makes the future feel real and present; Design fiction exercises imagination and gets people thinking about the future consequences of new innovations; Organizations could use design fiction to explore strategic futures and prepare for coming societal and technological shifts.

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Presenting

Keynote · 2023

Princeton Neuroscience Institute

I gave the closing keynote presentation and helped facilitate a breakout group for a day long immersive seminar & conference on the intersections of virtual reality, augmented reality, artificial intelligence and neuroscience.

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About, availability, and contact

Wondering about an emerging capability, ritual or weak signal?

Near Future Laboratory works with creative and product leaders to understand how emerging capabilities may reshape behavior, rituals, institutions, and everyday life. We gather perspectives that often sit apart, find the connections between them, and turn those connections into working prototypes, brand experiences, publications, public artifacts, and workshops.

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What I make

I listen to what people are seeing, saying, and making across technology, culture, behavior, and institutions. I connect those observations, reflect them back, and give them form as a prototype, product, publication, workshop, experience, or possible world. This helps people clarify what is changing and what it could mean for everyday life.

“Everyday intelligence?”

What is a world in which some kind of intelligence or consciousness is imbued in every surface in our habitats: kitchen appliances, garden tools, sofa, door knob. As AI enters normal, ordinary, everyday rituals, creative work, institutions, homes, devices, policy up and down the governance stack — how do we anticipate and design for the emergent behaviors, second-order consequences, and new forms of agency that will arise?

Embodied and spatial computing

Computational intelligence we hold, wear, hear, feel, and move through; embodying cognition and expression — not only software on a screen, or beter meeting summarization; new forms of everyday intelligence that are spatial, embodied, and relational.

Artifact-led strategy engagements

Use catalogs, newspapers, props, documents, and other diegetic artifacts to make strategic options inspectable and discussable.

Prototype and concept commissions

Use applied speculation to define and build functional prototypes that help a team learn faster, align more precisely, and test what should exist next.

Workshops for active programs

Design fiction workshops, sprints, and seminars tied to a real initiative rather than a one-off inspiration exercise.

Select talks and advisory work

Keynotes, executive sessions, and targeted advisory support when they advance a broader strategic or organizational effort.

Prototyping in practice

Often an emerging idea needs something tangible to help it come into focus: a device, a brand experience, a product review from the future — something people can hold, examine, ponder, and use to make sense.

Sometimes that's a prototype of a physical device, or a facilitated workshop, or a staged artifact, like a quick start guide or product review. This is a small archive of projects I've lead, or been involved with — from a Social Alarm Clock to a camera that was ahead of its time, to bespoke electronics for embedded systems.

Social Alarm Clock prototype from Nokia Trust, photographed as a physical hardware object.
Social Alarm Clock · Nokia Trust
A tray holding twenty white Omata One watch dials in individual clear cases.
Omata One Movements · Omata
Hands using a screwdriver to test a Nokia Rebel device in a workshop.
Hands-on device testing · Nokia Rebel
Handmade Star Trek communicator mobile phone prototype by Andrew Gartrell.
Star Trek communicator · Andrew Gartrell · Design fiction
Close-up of a green Flavonoid I2C circuit board held during assembly.
Flavonoid I2C Sensor · Near Future Laboratory
Nokia Trust prototype hardware photographed in a workshop.
Prototype hardware · Nokia Trust
Nokia Trust breadboard prototype with an Arduino, wires, and a seven-segment display.
Breadboard testing · Nokia Trust
Testing Nokia Macroboard.
Rebel camera macroboard · Nokia
Hand adjusting a knob on a wood-framed radio prototype with an analog meter.
Futures of audio functional speculative prototype · Nokia
View from bicycle handlebars with an Omata cycling computer mounted at the centre.
OMATA One in action · Modern mechanical analog/digital movement

Research and Methods

Futures research, anthropology, applied speculation, HCI, design fiction, policy, governance, and socio-technical inquiry inspire & inform our work.

Through these methods it becomes possible to notice how an emerging capability changes behavior, rituals, relationships, institutions, and everyday life.

Socio-technical systems

Understand AI through institutions, incentives, rituals, interfaces, governance, and everyday use, not just model capability in isolation.

Speculative model worlds

Create small designed scenarios, artifacts, and prototypes for rehearsing unfamiliar behaviors, agentic interactions, and second-order consequences.

Failures of imagination

Surface unknowns, anxieties, hopes, and edge cases that conventional strategy, policy, or engineering processes often miss.

A product or innovation decision needs specific options

Use artifacts, prototypes, and design fictions to give leadership something specific to evaluate, compare, and discuss.

A strategic direction is still too vague and abstract

Make an emerging technology, market shift, or adjacent opportunity tangible enough for a team to align around and act on.

An active initiative needs sharper alignment to the strategy..and momentum

Support a real program with workshops, prototypes, and advisory work that move the work forward rather than simply energize the room.

Proof

20+ years

Helping organizations make unfamiliar futures tangible enough to debate, test, and act on.

Clients include

Google, Apple, IKEA, Netflix, Samsung, Princeton, Amazon, DeepMind, Warner Bros., and more.

Outputs

Artifact-led strategy engagements, functional prototypes, design fictions, workshops, executive sessions, and advisory support.

Why hire NFL

Bring Near Future Laboratory in when you need futures work that can stand up to real constraints, scrutiny, and decisions, not just stage an inspiring talk.

Selected Near Future Laboratory clients

Some Recent Activities

Featured from The Adjacency

I use applied speculation and design fiction in the form of artifacts to make emerging conditions more legible and immersive in the form of news, product reviews, help wanted ads, beat reporting, advertisements, and other familiar media.

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The Breville Agentic toaster oven on a kitchen counter

The Adjacency / Eventually

The Agentic Appliances That Want To Make Themselves Useful

We tested a clever countertop oven and a bedside oraculating alarm clock from the new wave of agentic appliances to see when household reasoning feels helpful, and when it starts making itself too comfortable.

A rotating live article from The Adjacency.

Latest from The Adjacency

A live publication for emerging technology, culture, and institutional change.

Read the latest artifact
Aerial view of an abandoned hyperscale data-center campus assembled from prefabricated steel frames and insulated panels, with rooftop equipment, service yards, sparse scrub, and faint graffiti.

The Adjacency / Today

The Great Data Center Fallout

The liabilities attached to the AI construction boom are outliving the demand forecasts that supported them.

Latest writing

Recent notes from the Near Future Laboratory practice.

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Near Future Laboratory Design Fiction Imagine Harder

Most recent / Sep 25, 2026

Office Hours N°326

Sabrina Sullivan discussed the Calgary Futures Forum; Alex Kauffmann demonstrated hand-powered local AI; Rodney Frederickson shared tools for tracing how images change over time.

Latest newsletter

I do a weekly-ish newsletter taking signals from trends, emerging brands, new social practices, evolving rituals and frame them as artifacts from a possible near future.

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Open graph preview image for this newsletter

Most recent / Sep 30, 2026

W40-Y26

The Imagination Asymmetry

This edition explores the gap between AI capabilities and human imagination, highlighting the concept of "Imagination Asymmetry" as articulated by Mike Cannon-Brookes. It examines the implications of delegating creative processes to AI and the potential loss of discovery and insight that comes with it. The newsletter reflects on the historical context of OMATA, a project that embodies the intersection of design and technology, while also addressing the importance of curiosity and wonder in a culture increasingly focused on optimization. Upcoming events, including the Calgary Futures Forum, are featured alongside discussions from recent Office Hours, where innovative ideas and projects are shared. The content emphasizes the necessity of imagination as a strategic advantage in navigating future challenges.

Latest podcast

Conversations around design, futures, culture, and technology.

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N°105 - Small Stuff with Ian Bogost

Most recent / Jul 07, 2026

N°105 - Small Stuff with Ian Bogost

In this episode of the Near Future Laboratory Podcast, I talk with my old friend Ian Bogost about his new book, “The Small Stuff: How to Lead a More Gratifying Life” — a funny (like..I laughed out loud) , generous, and quietly radical invitation to recover the sensory enchantment of everyday life.Ian’s book begins with ordinary things: stick shifts, toasters, paper cups, plastic film, doorknobs, faucets, pre-ordering shirts, Diet Coke cans, plunger force cups when they are missing their handle, the texture of a phone case, the sound of ice in a motel ice bucket. Of course our conversation quickly opens into something larger, which I think Ian has been asking for awhile: how modern life has dematerialized so many of our encounters with the world, replacing small tactile gratifications with convenience, automation, frictionless interfaces, and screens.What I especially loved about this conversation is that Ian is not making a...

About, availability, and contact

If you have a creative R&D question, a need for the mindset of a creative techologist, a prototype to help nudge at an emerging cultural trend, product category, or brand experience — let's talk about the work.

A useful first note might include your initiative, the kinds of people, stakeholders, or audience involved, rough timing, and the form the work may need to take.

Discuss a projectEmail Julian