Michael Garfield

Paleontologist-Futurist Michael Garfield's work helps people navigate our age of accelerating weirdness and inspires the curiosity and playfulness we'll need to thrive in it. A boundless generalist and super-connector of people and ideas, he bridges siloed disciplines to deepen understanding of our complex world and foster pluralistic thinking everywhere he can.

As the host and producer of both Future Fossils Podcast and The Santa Fe Institute's Complexity Podcast, Michael has conducted over 350 interviews on systems in transition as an interlocutor for a worldwide community of artists, scientists, philosophers, and other visionaries.

His singular perspective draws on over twenty years of work in transdisciplinary "mind-jazz" as a public speaker, essayist, singer-songwriter, art director, managing editor, story and branding consultant, and non-profit advisor. A prolific artist, he has written hundreds of articles, painted hundreds of live canvases, produced hundreds of hours of original music, illustrated hundreds of scientific papers and textbooks, toured four continents, designed dozens of book and album covers, contributed to award-winning documentaries, managed academic social media accounts, moderated multiple large online communities, hosted long-running improvisation residencies, and raised two sassy kids. He has stirred up trouble everywhere from MAPS to Mozilla, Meow Wolf to Moogfest, the Commonwealth Bank of Australia Innovation Lab to The Long Now Foundation, SXSW to the Save Our Springs Alliance, the Regen Network to The Chapel of Sacred Mirrors.

His next project, the OSV Grant-funded discussion series Humans On The Loop, explores the nature of agency, power, responsibility, wisdom, and technology in the age of automation and planetary crisis. It’s time to graduate from asking if our dreams are possible to asking how we can dream better! (Don't hesitate to reach out if this resonates with you...)