V - The magazine of the VOLLMER Group - 2019

POSSIBILIST HORX Even as a child, Matthias Horx was fascinated by the future. Born in Dusseldorf in 1955, he grew up with the extremely technology-driven future fantasies of the 1960s and 1970s. Whether the bed-making machine, robot cooks or holidays in space – with the economic boom behind them and the moon landing in their heads, everything seemed possible for the coming century. This positive atmosphere helped shape his personality. As did his sociology studies in Frankfurt am Main. His vision for society, social change and the structure of sys- tems was sharpened. In 1980, he began his career as a publicist. Fantasies were relegated to comic strips and science fiction novels, and in reality he concentrated on print media: TEMPO, ZEIT and MERIAN. Then came 1993, when, together with designers, journalists and illustrators, he founded a consultancy firm for societal change: The Trendbüro in Hamburg. The company developed well, albeit in a different direction to the one that Horx had hoped, away from societal change and towards marketing. He left the Trendbüro and found the Zukunftsinstitut in 1998. Here he transformed the futurology of his youth into holistic forecasting. He considers the future from the human perspective and knows that technology and data alone won't change the world. He's a stranger to apocalyptic predictions in particular. For him, the future is an opportunity for progress. This led to, among other things, his 2007 bestseller “Anleitung zum Zukunfts-Optimismus” (An Introduction to Future Optimism). In 2009, together with his wife Oona Horx-Strathern, he built the “Future Evolution House” in Vienna. It's not a smart home in the sense of full automation, rather a com- fortable space to live where families test Horx's future tech- nologies for their annoyance factor and usability. It's about human futurism, in relation to materials, energy, mobility, nutrition and nature. Horx considers it his job to release individuals' and compa- nies' inner creative future impulses. He also still holds sem- inars, writes books and blogs, provides consultancy services and is a guest lecturer at universities. "I'm a possibilist! I think things are possible," states one-time doctor and health statis- tician Hans Rosling. It's a definition that Matthias Horx readily subscribes to. www. horx. com 18 PERSPECTIVES