Fast Familiar have been engaging with ideas around climate action since the early 2010s. We see art as a space where people can imagine and rehearse different futures.
Since 2016, we’ve worked in partnership with neuroscientist Dr Kris De Meyer (UCL’s Climate Action Unit), who uses ‘brain insights’ from his work to foster an action-led approach to climate change. We apply these insights to our interactive artworks.
We have made a number of artworks which directly explore taking action in response to climate change. You can read about these below.
We use our documentation blog to share our methodology for reducing the carbon footprint of our digital artworks. We also have a ‘how to’ guide, documenting how we radically reduced the carbon footprint (and simultaneously improved the accessibility) of this website.
As part of the Digital Climate Action strand of our work, we’ve build two free tools. As part of The Networked Condition, an ongoing project undertaken with AND and Arts Catalyst, we created a free-to-use tool for planning digital artworks. You can also read a series of interviews with leading artists in this field. The second tool is our site builder which lets you build a website that has zero carbon footprint.
We’re part of the Julie’s Bicycle International Touring and Environmental Responsibility programme, and are regularly asked to write and speak about our approach to climate action. Climate action underpins everything that we do, so feel free to get in touch if you’re planning an event.
The Strategy Room - an immersive experience which uses facilitated discussion and social psychology to find out what non-experts really think about climate change policies. Created with Nesta and UCL’s Climate Action Unit, it’s a way for someone to walk in off the street and within an hour, to imagine the benefits of a Net Zero future, and to have their say on how we get there.
Do What You Must - a scenario-based tool to facilitate training in group-based decision-making in the face of climate risk and uncertainty. Drawing on neuroscience and social psychology, it uses immersive narrative and interactivity to equip participants with the tools for collaborative decision-making to arrive at a sustainable, scalable solutions. It premiered in the Green Zone at COP26.
If I Were You - an interactive digital YA story about friendship and trying to do the right thing in a fast-moving world. Co-created with teenagers, it explores the decisions we make about protest, citizenship and climate emergency. If I Were You was supported by Nesta and the Paul Hamlyn Foundation.