[ABOUT THE SYMPOSIUM]Speculative Design is a cyborg practice that harkens back to past futurist movements, insisting on a moveable spectrum between art and radical social science. The term embraces diverse practitioners motivated to open up the imagination around “wicked problems” (Dunne and Raby 2013). Perhaps no problem seems quite so wicked in the contemporary moment as climate change and human dependency on petroleum. What would it mean to imagine a world without oil and its derivatives? What sort of leaps are both necessary and possible? What possibilities does a multi-generational perspective open up – a future beyond our own lifetimes? Sponsored under the Materializing the Future initiative of 3CT’s Object Cultures Project and open to all.
[ABOUT MATERIALIZING THE FUTURE]How is the future being shaped by designers in the present? Modernism in architecture and urban design often took its boldest steps by attempting to shape society's future. Having passed through a period of postmodern disenchantment, designers now seem ready again to take on the challenge of the future. In the face of climate change, a global crisis in democratic governance, and a chaotic acceleration of neoliberal capitalism, what sort of futures are visionary architects and designers trying to bring into being? What sort of utopian visions do they have? What informs their social imaginaries? What projects are being realized? What is on the horizon? How can we understand urban and landscape design as a social movement in this contemporary moment?
JAMES AUGER
The Madeira Interactive Technologies Institute and RMIT Europe
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James Auger’s work explores ways through which practice-based design research can lead to more considered and democratic technological futures. His collaborative design projects include the prize-winning Newton Machine, an energy storage project.
[ABOUT OUR KEYNOTES]
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DEEPA BUTOLIYA
Stamps School of Art & Design,
University of Michigan
Dr. Butoliya’s research is rooted in exploring critical design practices from the global south. As a part of her research, she has co-curated an international exhibition and organized a
symposium to explore the current practices in speculative and critical design.
Ken Eklund develops innovative game approaches as engagement engines for museums, universities, cultural institutions, and public media, most recently as Visiting Artist at the School for the Future of Innovation in Society at Arizona State University.
KEN EKLUND
Independent artist
[ABOUT THE CHICAGO CENTER FOR CONTEMPORARY THEORY]
Located in Wilder House, the Chicago Center for Contemporary Theory (3CT) is an interdisciplinary space for sustained, comparative discussion of social and political processes in the contemporary world.
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3CT’s intellectual activities range from our signature lecture series, Theorizing the Present, to a program of research projects, teach-ins, book salons and one-off lectures and conferences – all of which aim to generate fresh insights while raising new questions about the commitments, conventions, potential openings, and structural contradictions animating the contemporary.
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To read more about us you can check us out here.
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