Voices from Tomorrow: an immersive journey into future adulthood
Set in a Europe reshaped by AI delegation, fluid identities, ecological crisis, and weakened institutions, Coming of Age 20/40 invites you to meet four young Europeans navigating adulthood in a radically transformed world. Instead of reading about the future, participants step into it through AI‑enabled personas, physical artefacts, and Orb communication devices.
You encounter Rowan, Nova, Cypher and Zane, each with their own worldview, struggles and hopes in a reality where traditional markers of maturity no longer apply.
From policy to presence
Policy papers can describe trends like housing affordability, AI integration or declining birth rates, but they rarely show what these futures feel like. Coming of Age 20/40 bridges that gap by turning abstract foresight into embodied encounters.
The project creates space for direct dialogue with inhabitants of 2040, allowing participants to experience the emotional and philosophical complexity of future adulthood rather than only discussing it in the abstract.
The four synthetic personas were developed through in‑depth worldbuilding, drawing on trend research, speculative fiction and collaborative character work. Each travels to an EU Youth Conference as an activist in their own right—advocating for embodied learning, identity sovereignty, non‑human consciousness or intentional presence in an automated world. Their stories are not fixed scripts but living narratives that evolve with every conversation.
Designing dialogue: technology meets storytelling
Coming of Age 20/40 uses a hybrid setup that combines tactile objects with conversational AI.
Each persona “arrives” with a backpack filled with artefacts from their world:
- Rowan’s hand‑bound journal and Aiúa companion pendant
- Nova’s cross‑species communicator and emotional sync patch
- Cypher’s synthetic identity key and voice modulator
- Zane’s grandmother’s unfinished cookbook and EQ‑IQ ring
These objects make possible futures tangible, inviting participants to literally hold pieces of 2040 in their hands.
Orbs act as portals: compact devices with built‑in microphone, speaker and screen that enable real‑time conversations with the personas. Participants do not just read about these young adults: they talk with them, question them, learn from them, and are challenged in return.
Shifting perspectives
Coming of Age 20/40 makes policy questions personal.
A discussion about surveillance becomes visceral when Cypher answers a question on biometric control by framing identity fluidity as a form of resistance. Debates about AI personhood and ecological ethics feel different when Nova describes campaigning for recognition of non‑human consciousness while their cat sister, Aya Twinkle Moons, travels beside them in a transparent backpack.
The experience is designed to create “productive discomfort”: to unsettle assumptions about adulthood, technology, and the kind of Europe these four young people are inheriting. Participants leave not with predefined answers, but with sharper questions, and with four voices from 2040 that stay with them long after the session ends.