Lucy McRae - Future Sensitive

investigates how emerging technologies impact human evolution. Her artisanal approach to technology brings science to street level, creating sculpture, conceptual fashion, performance, and film that imagine hypothetical worlds and provoke exploration of who we are and where we’re headed.

In parallel with her gallery and museum focused art practice, McRae thrives as a strategic and versatile thought partner to brands, research institutes, and Hollywood writers’ rooms — including Blade Runner 2099. Renowned for her agility in connecting far-reaching dots, she brings a multiplayer mindset to thought experiments and technology’s evolving, plural ecosystem. Her work has been acquired by SFMOMA, the National Gallery of Victoria, Powerhouse Museum, and TextielMuseum, and has been exhibited globally at leading institutions including Centre Pompidou, Venice Biennale, Milan Triennial, MMCA Seoul, MAXXI, MIT Museum, Het Nieuwe Instituut, HEK (Haus der Elektronischen Künste), the London Science Museum, Design Museum Holon, and Honor Fraser Gallery.

McRae is a Visiting Professor at SCI-Arc and Arizona State University, where she co-directs a Futures Incubator for architecture students exploring hybrid creative practices. As a TED Fellow and mentor to emerging thinkers in technology and the liberal arts, she challenges students and collaborators alike to reimagine the future through speculative design.

In her talk Future Sensitive, McRae explores how technologies like CRISPR may reshape humanity in the coming decades, redefining social structures and the nature of reproduction. Asking provocative questions — such as who will design reproductive habitats when humans are no longer born in bodies, but in labs — she uses narrative prototyping to examine how science fiction can drive real-world discourse. These investigations lie at the heart of her practice, opening new and interdisciplinary avenues for architecture, design, and human identity in an increasingly engineered world.

With support from Design Core Detroit, and the Michigan Institute for Data and AI in Society.

This project was made possible by a grant from the Arts Initiative at the University of Michigan.

Series presenting partners: Detroit PBS, ALL ARTS, and PBS Books. Media partner: Michigan Public.

In accordance with the University of Michigan’s Standard Practice Guidelines on Freedom of Speech and Artistic Expression, the Penny Stamps Speaker Series does not censor our speakers or their content. The content provided is intended for adult audiences and does not reflect the views of the University of Michigan or Detroit Public Television.

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