“Innovation does not begin only in laboratories. Often, it takes shape much earlier.

In a film.
In a comic.
In a joke.
In a dystopian TV series.
In the stories society tells itself about what science and technology are allowed to become.

That was one of the most fascinating insights from my latest German Innovators Podcast conversation with Dr Anna-Sophie Jürgens from the The Australian National University.

Anna-Sophie is the founder of POPSICULE, the Science in Popular Culture and Entertainment Hub at ANU, where she explores how popular culture shapes the way society imagines science, risk, responsibility and the future.

And once you start looking at it, it is everywhere.

Jurassic Park did not just entertain us.
It shaped how many people still think about biotechnology, de-extinction and the question: “Just because we can, should we?”

The Last of Us did not just give us a fungal apocalypse.
It triggered serious conversations about pandemics, mycology and biological risk.

Terminator and Ex Machina did not just create iconic AI stories.
They still influence how many people emotionally interpret autonomous systems, machine intelligence and AI doom narratives today.

This matters because innovation is not only shaped by technical feasibility.
It is also shaped by cultural imagination.
By fear.
By humour.
By trust.
By the stories that make certain futures feel plausible — and others invisible.

One part of the conversation I found especially powerful was whether Australia should simply copy Silicon Valley and Hollywood-style innovation narratives:
The lone genius founder.
The techno-apocalypse.
The military supertech breakthrough.
The “move fast and disrupt everything” mythology.

Or whether Australia can tell a different kind of science and technology story.
One shaped by landscape.
Climate pressure.
Biodiversity.
Distance.
Public science.
First Nations knowledge systems.
Adaptation rather than domination.
Care and coexistence rather than conquest and escape.

That is a very different innovation narrative.
And maybe one the world urgently needs.

We also spoke about humour as a diagnostic tool for science and technology.
Because what we laugh about often reveals what we fear, what we distrust, what we misunderstand, and where authority is becoming fragile.

From mad scientists and clowns to comic parasites, bureaucracy, Canberra and Mad Max — this episode went into wonderfully strange but surprisingly serious territory.

My key takeaway:
Science communication is not just about explaining science better.
It is about making science culturally alive.
It is about asking which futures our societies are capable of imagining — and who gets to participate in imagining them.

Thank you, Dr Anna-Sophie Jürgens, for such a fascinating conversation.

Curious to hear your thoughts:
Which film, series or book has most shaped the way you think about science and technology?”

(Original post by Johannes Paul Lehmann on LinkedIn)