Neo-futuristic Walks serve as a series of ‘walkable’ city inspections that shape and grow a community of future urban dwellers, called neo-futurists. While walking, the neo-futurists forge new relationships with their surroundings and collectively re-imagine their modes of urban coexistence. The concept of neo-futurism emerges through analysing the diversity of possible urban futures they desire to inhabit, and helps them challenge conventional narratives of progress. While walking and speculating about these futures, neo-futurists might, for example, sympathise with and contextualise the concept of degrowth—an ideology which stands in contrast to capitalism by prioritising social and ecological well-being over constant economic growth—or they might imagine the means for living together in different post-disaster scenarios such as drought or flood. Neo-futuristic narratives are expressed in the walks through a set of speculative characters—individuals with unique beliefs, skills, and obsessions—who inhabit cities as if they were already living the futures they envision.
Walking for neo-futurists serves as a key method to develop bodily bonds with urban ecosystems, welcome spontaneous events into their research, and physically experience the effects of climate change. Extreme temperatures, sudden storms, and bodily exhaustion become part of the speculative process, turning the walks into site-specific climate fictions.
In April 2025, as part of the Staging Ground residency, Neo-futuristic Walks led a workshop for the artist-researchers undertaking the Master’s in Art, Technology and Creation of the École de recherche universitaire ArTeC It focused on water infrastructures at the edges of Plaine Commune suburban district and the borders of the City of Paris.
While following a variety of aquatic bodies, this group of neo-futurists became agents of their own bodily organs, drawing speculative parallels between the urban water systems and those of the human body. In an unexpected heatwave and under burning sunshine, the group moved slowly along the Saint-Denis canal, passing by the Cité des sciences, the remnants of the former Petite ceinture rail line, and finishing their walk in the paradisiacal terrain of the Buttes-Chaumont park. On their way, the neo-futurist walkers carried out three water-drinking rituals by sharing a bottle of water and filling each other’s glasses.