‘The Subversion of Paradoxes’ — A 2018 Retrospective: Part I (Ch. 6/10)
Chapter 6— Beyond Dreams: The Futures of the Planet, Power & Reality
Ahead of the upcoming 5th anniversary edition of IAM Weekend (March 21–23, 2019 in Barcelona), in this 10-chapter retrospective we recap the key learnings, activities and next steps that emerged from our 2018 research theme: The Subversion of Paradoxes. In this chapter we present the key learnings from ‘Beyond Dreams’, the closing session of our annual event.
Dreams and dreaming makes us human, but what is it that we collectively dream of? More importantly, why? What dominant narratives surround them? Planetary thought and action is desperately needed with the onset of climate change and ever-rising threat to our oceans — political problems that are far from natural (disasters) and are very much man-made.
Dreams are an important tool to go beyond the limits our global political systems, but we need also to be aware of the varied realities that ground them. Hypernormalisation and computer generated imagination constantly challenge what constitutes the “real” in reality, so what should our dreams and realities look like?
We invited CGI artist Alan Warburton, KOSMICA Institute founder Nahum, and AFROTOPIA founder and former Detroit mayoral candidate Ingrid LaFleur to share their stories, insights and dreams of the futures of the Planet, power and reality.
Here the three key learnings from this session:
1. As photorealist CGI becomes widespread, artists become the vanguard in both cultural experimentation and reality verification
2. Outer space offers a canvas to reflect on, challenge and go beyond Earthly notions like colonialism, exploitation and occupation
3. Afrofuturism shows a way forward for pluralist, decolonised dreams of the future
The quotes from where these key learnings come from:
“After decade of innovation we’re at the point where we can conjure just about anything with software. The battle for photoreal CGI has been won, so the question is: what happens next? … In these new lands the rules are not yet written. Artists here are hybrids, double-agents armed with the skills to become monsters in the wilderness, bandits at the frontier and explorers beyond it.”
– Alan Warburton, artist
Watch: ‘Goodbye Uncanny Valley’
Note: The video of Alan’s presentation is not publicly available.
“While Space is very often imagined as a continuation of older logics and practices of Western power, inventing new alternatives to colonialism, exploitation and occupation becomes crucial. If we are to live in a more equitable society and this is super important. Remember that space exploration has always been a reflection of how societies envision the future. For this reason space is a critical territory that must been inhabited artistically as well as scientifically.”
– Nahum, Artist & founder, KOSMICA Institute
“This is very important about Afrofuturism. You have to be grounded within the ancestors. Afrofuturism does play with time, it deconstructs it so the past-present-future is all in the now. So when we say ‘futurism’ we are talking about ‘the now’ and we have to honor our ancestors and all that is given to us and what help us ground us in Earth and the cosmos.”
Ingrid LaFleur, Founder, AFROTOPIA and former Detroit mayoral candidate
‘The Subversion of Paradoxes’ — A 2018 Retrospective is a 10-chapter retrospective where we recap the key learnings, activities and next steps that emerged from IAM’s 2018 research theme.
Continue reading Part II…
👉 Join us for IAM Weekend 19, our annual meeting for creative agents of change who care about the futures of the internet(s) where you can discover, be inspired and interconnect with diverse perspectives around our research theme for 2019: ‘The Quantumness of Archipelagos’.
