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Events

Future Focus: Fragile Worlds II

Thu 10th - Thu 10th September 2020, 16:00 - 17:30 BST, hosted online

A two-part event taking place as part of Ars Electronica 2020 In Kepler’s Gardens, a global journey mapping the “new” world.

Future Focus: Fragile Worlds was a two-part event that took place as part of Ars Electronica 2020 In Kepler’s Gardens, a global journey mapping the “new” world. We joined a community of organisations from North to South forming a UK Garden as part of this year’s Ars Electronica 2020 festival, the Garden of Earthly Delights (after the homonymous Hieronymous Bosch painting).

Inspired by the Ars Electronica 2020 meta-topics of ecology, democracy, uncertainty, humanity, reality, and autonomy, and ideas behind the Bosch painting, the UK Garden of Earthly Delights interrogates the moment we are now in, as humanity is in the middle of a long term pandemic, global recession and mass unemployment, but also in an ongoing environmental crisis, inequality and the spread of division and fascism.

Fragile Worlds brought together STARTS Prize winners, associate artists, as well as partners and collaborators to present an online two-part programme of art practices tours and conversations. The presentations and discussions that followed explored ideas of present and future ecologies and systems, from environmental change and sustainability to technologically driven worlds, but also their possible restoration and rewilding.

Future Focus: Fragile Worlds II – YouTube stream

SESSION II

A series of provocations and discussion following from the Future Focus: Art Hack Practice series, exploring artistic practices and the role of art at a time of crisis, shifting spaces of production, care and labour in a precarious world.

With:
Ayodamola Tanimowo Okunseinde (ayo), artist, Assistant Professor of Interaction and Media Design, Parsons School of Design, New York
Paolo Cirio, artist (STARTS Prize 2020 Honorary Mention)
Victoria Bradbury, media artist and Assistant Professor of New Media at University of North Carolina Asheville, North Carolina, co editor Art Hack Practice: Critical Intersections of Art, Innovation and the Maker Movement (Routledge, 2019)
Suzy O’Hara, curator and researcher, co editor Art Hack Practice: Critical Intersections of Art, Innovation and the Maker Movement (Routledge, 2019)

Introduced by Irini Papadimitriou

 

Future Focus is FutureEverything’s new online space of critical conversations, talks and debates, as well as cross-sector exchange, networking and collaboration.

From panels, performative talks and workshops to roundtable conversations, industry meetings, mentoring and artists’ advice, Future Focus will develop around curated themes and flexible, experimental formats inviting our creative community, partners, collaborators, colleagues, friends and anyone else to join us, connect, share work and explore future collaborations.

The Covid-19 pandemic – apart from devastating communities and putting everything on hold – has highlighted the fragility of our society, environment and living beings, and the urgent need for changing our actions. The aim of this new space is to explore ideas for a kinder, more considerate future world, to offer inspiration, support and feedback, but also enable exciting new links, creative cross-pollination and critical discourse at challenging times.