Julian Bleecker, BSEE, MSEng, Ph.D.
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Who Is Near Future Laboratory?

Julian Bleecker

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Julian Bleecker is a researcher, designer, engineer, and entrepreneur. He is synonymous with Near Future Laboratory, the platform he founded originally as a blog in 2005, which has since become his company through which he does commercial work. It serves as a home for projects, writing, his podcast conversations with some very curious and intriguing people, his Learning & Development platforms SuperSeminar and General Seminar

He is also most often associated with the product company OMATA, which he founded in 2014 and sold in a successful exit in 2022.

In addition to making other significant contributions to the fields of design, technology, art+technology, and commercial innovation practices, he originated the concept of 'Design Fiction' in collaboration with the science-fiction author Bruce Sterling.

Julian is the author of Design Fiction: A Short Essay on Design, Science, Fact and Fiction, 'It's Time To Imagine Harder', and an author of 'The Manual of Design Fiction', the canonical reference for the eponymous practice that has evolved creative practices globally.

At OMATA Julian developed the unique OMATA One cycling computer, connected App, and defined the engineering architecture for a truly unique hybrid of analog + digital technology that combined GPS, Bluetooth, mechanics, and connetivity. He successfully developed the product, brand, and activated the marketplace for this unique sports computer that combines the capabilities of modern sensor technology with the elegance and beauty of an analog timepiece. He continues to work with the new owners to assist with production, brand, and engineering needs.

In addition to his work as an entrepreneur, Julian is an active researcher with strong ties and stakes to academics, pedagogy, learning & professional development.

He was an Assistant Professor at the University of Southern California's famed School of Cinematic Arts — the USC Film School — where he taught graduate film students interactive, location-based, and connected technologies and ways of integrating such in place-based storytelling. He worked for 8 years in a key role at Nokia's Advanced Design Studio in Los Angeles where he evolved a futures-oriented approach to design activities in a commercial context.

The lessons from that experience became a baseline for subsequent commercial futures work. This came from a recognition that it was not enough to have clever ideas, nor show them on a PowerPoint slide. Rather, one must augment and sense-into possibility through tangible, experienced representations — partial worlds as one might experience, not just physical prototypes of this-or-that geegaw, nor stock 'user-experience scenarios'. This experience led indirectly to Design Fiction.

Julian has exhibited art+technology work through many venues, platforms, festivals, and galleries including Ars Electronica (2005), Bitform Gallery (2003), Art Interactive, Times Square (Creative Time's 59th Minute), the Walker Art Center's Sculpture Garden, Whitney Museum's Art Port, the Design Museum (London), MoMA, Rhizome, and more.

Along with Scott Paterson and Marina Zurkow, he was a Creative Capital grant recipient and has been an artist-in-residence at Eyebeam Atelier and Banff Center for the Arts. He has published numerous articles and papers on design, technology, and innovation, and holds several patents, including one he wrote himself for his invention of the OMATA One.

Near Future Laboratory is the hub of his practice. You can find most of his work within the Projects index at Near Future Laboratory. You can also find the best ways of engaging him within Services.

He is an avid photographer who has published several photo books, including 'Hello, Skater Girl' (2011), the first book to exclusively highlight women's skateboarding at a time when the male-dominated sport had yet to take notice. 10 years after its publication, two of the women he were worked (one just finishing high school, the other a junior at USC) were sponsored pros, and appeared in the 2023 Tokyo Olympics, the first Olympic Games to feature skateboarding.

Julian has a Ph.D. in History of Consciousness from UC Santa Cruz where he studied and taught with Professors Donna Haraway, and Angela Y. Davis. His dissertation, 'The Reality Effect of Technoscience' investigates the ways technologies of representation from the telescope, special effects (film), simulation video games (SimCity), and virtual reality have shaped the ways we understand veridical truth, or the common idiom, 'reality'.

He holds 11 patents, including two he wrote using a great 'patent it yourself' book for his first commercial product, the OMATA One.

He has an MS in HCI Engineering from University of Washington where he worked as a researcher at the Human Interface Technology Lab. He received his BS in Electrical Engineering from Cornell University.