In the event you’ve seen photos of the Museum of the Future in Dubai, you’ll know that it’s one thing from out of this world.
Brendan McGetrick, the artistic director of Museum of the Future, got here to Austin, Texas, with a touring exhibit for the primary time not too long ago to share the imaginative and prescient for the museum, which takes you on a journey to the way forward for 50 years from now. In an exhibit at SXSW 2025, the museum gave individuals a style of its improvements in visible expertise. I spoke with him in regards to the imaginative and prescient and what he expects to occur sooner or later.
Beforehand, he was founding director of International Grad Present, an annual exhibition of graduate initiatives from the world’s main design and expertise colleges. In 2014, he curated Honest Sufficient within the Russian pavilion on the Venice Structure Biennale. As a author, designer and curator, McGetrick’s work has appeared in publications all over the world.
Dubai Future Basis, the museum creator, hosted an immersive expertise in Austin. I hope to make it to the actual museum — a seven-story cultural landmark in Dubai — at some point. It takes individuals to the 12 months 2071 and presents the imaginative and prescient for the intersection of Center Japanese futurism and Western tech tradition. It paints an image on how desert improvements may inform local weather adaptation globally — very like the sci-fi epic Dune.
We had a wide-ranging dialog in regards to the future. Right here’s an edited transcript of our interview.
GamesBeat: How lengthy has this been a challenge for you?
Brendan McGetrick: A bit greater than six years. I joined in January 2019.
GamesBeat: Was that earlier than it opened?
McGetrick: Sure, we opened in February 2022. I joined when the constructing was below development, however we have been nonetheless very a lot determining the idea of what the museum could be and constructing the workforce.
GamesBeat: You don’t get to do this sort of factor fairly often. It’s a novel museum. What was that have like?
McGetrick: It was difficult, however an thrilling problem. We had to determine what a museum of the longer term even is. That’s thrilling since you don’t have any references to attract from, actually. You’ve got plenty of freedom to interpret. We spent plenty of time determining what we’d just like the expertise to be, what sort of future we’d prefer to current to individuals, and the way we’d like individuals to really feel after they’re within the museum. All of that was difficult, however in the absolute best method.
GamesBeat: What did you select to concentrate on to seek out your path?
McGetrick: Sure issues made it straightforward to seek out that path. As a result of it was an initiative of the Dubai authorities, we knew their coverage priorities and areas of engagement, notably relating to the longer term. That formed the alternatives we made across the topics we have been going to speak about, the views and the imaginative and prescient of the longer term the management of Dubai is working towards. We dramatized it, in a method, and located a strategy to universalize it. We knew our viewers could be from all over the place. We wished to inform a narrative or current a imaginative and prescient of the longer term that was rooted in Dubai’s values and pursuits, but in addition spoke to a wider expertise.
That was one of many predominant guiding lights. One other one was simply the form of expertise we wished to supply. We determined very early we wished to be an immersive expertise, the place you have been visiting future environments. It isn’t an exhibition in regards to the future as a lot as futures you possibly can discover and really feel part of. We knew that may be our interpretation early on, so we labored towards making it as convincing as potential.
GamesBeat: What applied sciences turned probably the most helpful as you set this collectively?
McGetrick: After all we used all of the show applied sciences that you’d sometimes use: projection, spatial audio, issues which might be conscious of motion. However in the long run it’s probably not technology-driven. It’s extra story-driven. We reference applied sciences like AI and artificial biology, issues we all know will form the longer term, and we current them in a method that helps individuals perceive their potential. However plenty of the strategies for attaining the museum are extra borrowed from movie, set design, issues like that, reasonably than issues like AR or VR, which can be futuristic, however don’t actually translate for a giant challenge like ours that has 1000’s of individuals daily.
GamesBeat: Do you’ve got any stats which might be attention-grabbing for giving individuals extra perspective on this?
McGetrick: We’ve been offered out daily since we opened, three years straight. We get one thing like 1.3 million guests a 12 months. A extremely attention-grabbing stat is that 30% of our guests have by no means been to a museum earlier than. The guests have come from one thing like 177 nations. It’s an excellent broad viewers, culturally and experientially. Some individuals are futurists and consultants on the topic. Some include no expectations in any respect. One of many challenges is how you can converse to such a broad viewers in a method that meaningfully touches them.
GamesBeat: I think about sustainability is a giant theme right here. Methods to reside on Earth with out destroying it.
McGetrick: We now have an entire flooring about making use of sciences like AI and artificial biology to start repairing injury we’ve executed to the pure world. Three of the exhibition flooring happen within the 12 months 2071. We’re already on a timeline assuming local weather change, assuming the results of local weather change, which is ecosystem collapse and mass extinction. If that’s the case, on the opposite aspect of that, how can we start making use of these applied sciences which might be simply rising now, however can be far more superior in 50 years, to start repairing our relationship to the pure world? In a extra significant and wholesome method, understanding that we will have an effect on nature, however we must always do it in a delicate, optimistic method, versus simply doing no matter we wish.
GamesBeat: Do you contact on one thing like gaming?
McGetrick: One among our flooring is for kids, 10 and under. In that one we borrowed lots from sport experiences. Not from online game visuals or screen-based experiences – it’s all bodily issues – however we gamified it within the sense that you simply select an avatar, and the stuff you do–you accumulate badges for those who efficiently do one of many video games. It’s important to collaborate. You’re making an attempt to construct future proof expertise of collaboration and creativity and communication. We tried to take what makes video games so compelling and attention-grabbing for individuals, however then apply it to a bodily expertise, so that you simply’re not simply sitting there taking a look at a display screen. You’re utilizing your physique and being bodily. On the similar time, you’re studying from what’s so attention-grabbing about gamified experiences.
GamesBeat: Do you take a look at gaming and extrapolate it to one thing like a metaverse, or the concept of digital life?
McGetrick: We don’t have a digital twin of the expertise, partly as a result of we really feel devoted to rewarding individuals for being bodily there. We now have a really multisensory expertise. We put plenty of time and thought into the character of audio, the character of scent. We now have 5 or 6 totally different scents that we made particularly for the museum. A part of that’s simply to remind those who even on this digitized age, in the long run your senses are the unique expertise, and we must always attempt to use them as a lot as potential. None of that stuff interprets to a metaverse expertise. Perhaps sooner or later we may discover it, however as we have been initially conceiving it, we wished to maintain it very a lot within the bodily world.
GamesBeat: Would you examine it to one thing just like the Sphere in Las Vegas?
McGetrick: What now we have in frequent with the Sphere is that the constructing itself is charming to individuals. It makes them very interested in what’s happening contained in the constructing. The Sphere is a form of new commonplace for what is feasible in a mediated surroundings, a media-defined surroundings. For us, we attempt to be much less screen-based. We’re utilizing plenty of bodily objects, enjoying with mild and issues like that. I just like the Sphere within the sense that it pushes individuals ahead to do new and attention-grabbing issues.
The opposite factor in regards to the Sphere that I feel is nice, and we’re making an attempt to develop this additional, is that it’s collective. It’s an area for collective experiences. We’re making an attempt to make the journey by way of the museum extra collective, recognizing that individuals who come to museums now–it’s very not often a person. It’s a small group of mates or household. They need to have a collective expertise. In addition they generally need to really feel like they’re in a giant group of individuals doing one thing. All this stuff are inspiring for us. We’re making an attempt to include them.
GamesBeat: Do you attempt to cowl totally different industries, like transportation or drugs?
McGetrick: Type of? Three of the flooring are thematic. One is about house. One is in regards to the surroundings and ecology. The opposite is about well being. Inside these we cowl quite a few totally different industries. Beneath that now we have a expertise showcase flooring. That flooring is thematic as effectively. We now have a transportation part, an city design part, an power part, issues like that. We will’t cowl every thing, however we attempt to cowl as a lot as we will.
GamesBeat: Is the museum full, or do you continue to have extra growth taking place?
McGetrick: Not growth, however we’re within the technique of redesigning all of the reveals. We’ll substitute them. That’s the evolution that should occur, and one of many challenges of the museum. Everybody’s at all times asking, “What else you bought?” It’s thrilling now, as a result of we’re taking a look at what we’ve executed critically and fascinated with how we will do issues higher. What have we realized from our viewers? That type of factor.
GamesBeat: I’m at all times writing about enjoyable new applied sciences. Mild Subject Lab is one I’ve seen not too long ago, I don’t know for those who’re acquainted with them. Do you see issues like that coming alongside to alter museum expertise?
McGetrick: The ought to. One among our insights is that the way in which one thing is displayed impacts how a lot individuals take a look at it. If it’s simply linear media on a giant display screen, we’ve been shocked to see how a lot individuals don’t interact with that. When you’ve got an authentic medium or method of presenting one thing, individuals are shocked by it. That’s sufficient to make them cease and ask, “What’s truly taking place right here?” Issues like Mild Subject are actually thrilling for us, as a result of they permit us to broaden our methods of presentation.
The longer term is unknown, undefined. Our massive problem, in a method, isn’t to foretell the longer term, however to seek out methods to make individuals care in regards to the future. For that we have to change issues up. Sure issues actually converse to individuals, whereas different issues converse to them much less. How can we be good communicators and supply sufficient inspiration that individuals can then go away the museum and go about their lives and make their very own selections? That’s the principle level. The longer term issues, and also you matter to the longer term. Please take into consideration what you need to do.
GamesBeat: Do you’re feeling that you simply’re giving warnings to individuals in regards to the future?
McGetrick: If something, what we’re making an attempt to do is establish issues which might be reliable issues now, however reasonably than turning these into some dystopian future – which plenty of TV and flicks and novels do – we’re making an attempt to say that local weather change is an actual factor. Area is a contest. Army competitors, financial competitors, these are actual issues which might be rising. Our well being flooring is about data overload and expertise dependence. These are all actual challenges that would go plenty of other ways. Our museum exists to say that with the appropriate interventions and the appropriate values, these may develop into optimistic issues. That’s the way in which we needs to be channeling our power and our creativeness.
We’re warning individuals, in a method, however not in a method that’s meant to scare them. We all know from museum research and exhibition research that these issues are pacifying for individuals. It doesn’t encourage them to do something. It simply makes them really feel like they’ll’t do something. We’re making an attempt to supply warnings that empower. It is a warning, however this isn’t inevitable. We will go differently.
GamesBeat: I keep in mind Michio Kaku’s guide on the longer term. There was an attention-grabbing passage the place he talked about how now we have to determine immortality first, after which we will work out house journey, as soon as we’re in a position to reside lengthy sufficient to do it. It makes excellent sense.
McGetrick: He got here to the museum, truly, and spoke there. Sure individuals, sure cultures, they suppose and speak lots in regards to the future. One of many issues we’re making an attempt to do is broaden the variety of individuals and the variety of cultures which might be contributing to the dialog. Decoding what a future may very well be.
We get plenty of suggestions, and we take it severely. Our ambition was by no means to be predicting or forecasting the longer term. We’re displaying potential futures and stimulating dialog, issues like that. When individuals include a unique interpretation or expectation, we embrace that. We speak about that and see if we will harmonize this stuff.
GamesBeat: Did you’ve got a selected mission in coming right here to SXSW?
McGetrick: It’s our first activation outdoors of Dubai, outdoors of the museum. We thought this appeared just like the form of place that has an analogous spirit. It’s very multidisciplinary. It brings individuals collectively from totally different fields and totally different cultures. It has an optimistic, or a minimum of experimental philosophy. That’s actually the place we come from. We’ve spent all this time defining what we take into consideration the longer term and the form of conversations we need to have. Perhaps now it’s attention-grabbing to start introducing these conversations and views outdoors. It’s been tremendous gratifying.
We’ve had a terrific response. The talks have been very well-attended. A number of attention-grabbing questions and conversations have come out of them. We’ve met plenty of attention-grabbing individuals. For us it’s been nice, since you at all times hope for the perfect, however you by no means know the primary time you do one thing. It’s been gratifying for us and we’re blissful we did it.
