An article for CCCB LAB
In recent years the phenomenon of conditional narratives, utopian and dystopian alike, has been established as a framework of possibility from which to tackle problems relating to technological development, to the latter’s political uses and to the direct consequences on – the misnomer that is – nature. From philosophy, art theory, research and specifically artistic practice, a speculative boom has occurred, mainly focusing on projects that write stories about possible futures. The use of the fictional component as a critical tool to re-articulate the here-and-now has been present over the course of history, through a range of different formats, from Bacon’s New Atlantis to Donna Haraway, from simulated life to the imaginable epochs to come. Speculation has been presented as a power to change the present by imagining other futures, but is the idea of future devitalising speculative power?
Full article here
laurabenitezvalero.com 
Pingback: MAKE KIN(D), NOT FUTURE(S) ONE-DAY CONFERENCE AROUND ‘IN THE OPEN OR IN STEALTH. THE UNRULY PRESENCE OF AN INTIMATE FUTURE’ |