Other Futures : Another Look

course:

HT 2729

Other Futures

Course DescriptionOther Futures looks backwards in order to look forwards. We will take up certain central questions: How do our visions for the future reflect critical values of the present? Whose voices are represented in designed worlds? What is the use value and importance of speculation in architecture, as well as art and literature? Can we use the very design tools of neoliberal and techno-utopian dreaming as an apparatus of resistance? The class begins retrospectivelywith discussions about avant-guardist futures from Constant, Archigram, and Superstudio, among others, before launching into territories less explored by the discipline: Afrofuturism, Gulf Futurism, and Latinxand Sino futurisms.

“The future is already here – it’s just not evenly distributed.”

William

Gibson

Curatorial Statement

Inspired by China Miéville’s The City and The City, our exhibition, Another Look, targets the ever growing disparity in wealth and living conditions of people living within close proximity of one another and forces the public to take another look and see the city as a whole, unfiltered. It is our hope that by seeing the city as a whole, we can gain compassion and use technology to improve the living conditions of the ones left behind by society. With the technological bloom of the 21st century we have used technology to achieve unfathomable things, making our lives ever more comfortable and tailored to our own preference. We can now filter and select what we want to see on the internet with the YouTube algorithm. What we are exposed to are also regulated by online censorships by corporations or government agencies. This is also the case in the real world where we choose not to see or act upon what right infront of us because it is inconvenient to do so. Contemplating about the future living conditions, we hope to reverse this phenomenon.

See the unseeing

Using the effect of psychogeography, the effect of a geographical location on the emotions and behaviors of individuals, the exhibit strategically places artworks and architecture projects that reflect upon class disparity into the space to create diverse route possibilities for the public to interact with in a form of a miniature city. With a simple blue and red tag on each project, the public are instructed to navigate through the city only by interacting with projects with one of colors. Depending on the region each individual interacts with, the city invokes emotions to the person as “total”, belonging to the city, “alter”, belonging to the other city, and “cross hatched,” belonging to both of the cities. After navigating through the projects, the public are guided to the second floor where they will have a clear sight of the entire exhibition space. Taking in the whole city into view and are now allowed to explore or take “another look” through the exhibition space with a new gained perspective.