When Fiction Becomes Reality: Navigating the Augmented City
- Threatcasting.ai
- Aug 1
- 3 min read
Updated: Aug 2
On August 14, join us for a groundbreaking conversation between three visionaries mapping the collision between the physical and digital urban worlds. This webinar brings together filmmaker-turned-technologist Keiichi Matsuda, award-winning author and futurist Madeline Ashby, and Threatcasting.ai’s Greg Lindsay to explore how science fiction doesn’t predict the future, but actively shapes it.
From Dystopian Warning to Development Roadmap
In 2016, Keiichi Matsuda’s short film Hyper-Reality sent shockwaves through the tech industry. His kaleidoscopic vision of Medellín drowning in gamified interfaces and hovering loyalty points became Silicon Valley’s cautionary tale — the urban metaverse Meta, Snap, and Niantic swore they wouldn’t build. Today, Matsuda finds himself inside the very companies his film warned against, working with them through his studio Liquid City to create more humane alternatives.
This transition from critic to creator exemplifies a powerful truth — speculative fiction doesn’t just warn us about possible futures, but provides blueprints for building better ones. As Matsuda puts it, “I tried to approach it from both a holistic and critical perspective — not just how we’re going to sell this technology to people, but if it’s left unchecked, what are the consequences?”
The Power of Concrete Imagination
Greg Lindsay’s recent report, The Augmented City: Seeing Through Disruption, explores those consequences through Threatcasting — using science fiction to transform abstract technological threats into visceral, human stories.
Working with Madeline Ashby, who contributed short stories paired with each finding, the report demonstrates how fiction can make the invisible visible, turning policy bullet points into lived experiences stakeholders can feel in their bones.
Consider one of Ashby’s stories: a former prisoner discovers that the outside world has become more surveilled than the jail he left behind, where AI agents charge him to speak with the digital ghost of his only friend. It’s not just a dystopian fantasy — it’s a concrete exploration of how these technologies could manifest in our lives and streets tomorrow.
Beyond Pokémon GO: Real Stakes for Real Cities
We’ve already glimpsed this future. When Pokémon GO launched in July 2016 — only weeks after the Web debut of Hyper-Reality — it demonstrated how augmented reality could transform urban behavior overnight. Crowds swarmed parks, players trespassed on private property, and cities scrambled to understand why their public spaces were suddenly overrun by digital ghost hunters.
But Pokémon GO was just the beginning. As Lindsay’s report reveals, we’re rapidly approaching an era where “visual positioning systems” compete to define reality itself. Google, Apple, Meta, and others are building incompatible digital twins of our cities. The question isn’t whether augmented reality will reshape urban life, it’s who gets to augment reality, and for whose benefit?
Fiction as Strategic Tool
Together, Matsuda, Ashby, and Lindsay will explore how science fiction prototyping serves as more than entertainment or a warning — it’s a strategic tool for navigating technological disruption. As the co-author of How to Future, Ashby will share techniques for using narrative within organizations to help stakeholders viscerally understand implications spreadsheets can’t convey.
Meanwhile, Matsuda will discuss his journey from filmmaker to founder, revealing how his speculative visions guide concrete technical decisions at Liquid City. His latest work includes creating AI-powered augmented reality agents — the very spirit animals he once depicted as dystopian elements, now reimagined as potential companions and guides through our hybrid physical-digital cities.
Join the Conversation
This isn’t just another tech talk. It's an opportunity to engage with the architects of our augmented future — the storytellers who imagine it, the technologists who build it, and the researchers who help us navigate its implications.
Whether you’re a city official grappling with emerging technologies, a community organizer concerned about digital equity, or simply someone who wants to understand the invisible layers being written onto your neighborhood, this conversation will equip you with new ways of seeing — and shaping — the augmented city.
The future of our cities won't be determined by technology alone, but by the stories we tell about it. Join us on August 14 to be part of that crucial conversation.
Register below for the Zoom link!
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