Lua Jiang

In William Gibson’s 2003 cyberpunk novel Pattern Recognition, the protagonist Cayce Pollard, a coolhunter and creative consultant, utilises her body’s visceral reaction to the world around her to detect irregularities and deviations. Like Pollard, spotting weird signals requires us to tune into our nervous system to cut through the noise to find... See more

Instead, what I have trained myself to look for, more specifically, are ‘weird’ signals. Weird signals are behaviours and phenomena that feel strange or out of place. But importantly, they also tend to hint at unanticipated future cultural upheavals. As cultural futurist Jasmine Binaexplains: “weird signals usually give us a glimpse into the future... See more

In this essay, written in partnership with Sublime, my main personal knowledge management tool, I’ll share how I approach research as a form of pattern disruption, an intentional practice for breaking free from the hall of mirrors that traps so much of today’s trend forecasting. I’ll walk through how I use Sublime to collect, connect and create... See more