Fabricating Fictions – workshop
Fabricating Fictions at The White Building featuring VVFA - Andrew Friend & Sitraka Rakotoniaina
A weekend of co-inquiry, research projects and speculative design to collectively imagine possible interstellar futures
book workshop tickets here
The White Building
31 Oct – 1 Nov 2015
Sat: 9am – 9pm
Sun: 9am – 9pm
Whereas the Space Age of the mid 20th century painted a fuzzy picture of psychedelic collective togetherness, today’s techno-accelerated rhetorical “Space Race” is fuelled by entrepreneurial mantras and the glowing allure of participatory money-spinning schemes.
As we witness the gradual transition from large-scale, government-led exploration to a more versatile and agile approach to future-facing narratives, and as private enterprises become increasingly involved it is essential that new future-facing scenarios are explored in a critical cultural context.
SPACE presents Fabricating Fictions – a weekend of group activities critically addressing and collectively reconfiguring the values and belief systems intrinsic to today’s intergalactic technological advances.
Featuring artists Andrew Friend & Sitraka Rakotoniaina’s collaborative project VVFA, co-inquiry activities, screenings and a speculative design Masterclass, the weekend presents a public open forum for thecritical discussion and collective (re)modelling of possible intergalactic futures.
From exclusively ticketed space tourism to asteroid mining, the idea of space exploration has been pimped and democratised to fit with the popular rhetoric of networked society. Once directed by the elite few of government bodies and staged as the ultimate powerplay game of international chess, today’s space exploration is characterized by the democratised digital commons and a prosaic collective imagination.
Fabricating Fictions weekend seeks to disrupt the dominant narrative of a flattened, commercial futurism and seeks to reignite critical debate around narratives of hyper-scale, obsolescence and control through the use of collective co-inquiry activities and speculative design skills.
Research Questions:
[to be addressed in the co-inquiry sessions]
- How does today’s neo-liberally charged, entrepreneurial intergalactic exploration shape our new digital commons?
- How far does techno-accelerationism determine our collective imagining of possible futures?
- Can techno-progression affect our collective ideals and can we reinstate utopic, democratic spaces of dreams and discovery?
Schedule
Prior to the workshop
One week before the weekend, key texts and research questions will be shared with the participants.
Saturday
AM
9.00 – 10.00: Registration & Coffee
10.00 – 10.20: Introduction by Andrew Friend & Sitraka Rakotoniaina
10.20 – 12.30: Group allocation
& Co-Inquiry session #1
PM
12.30 – 1.15: Group Research Presentations
1.15 – 2.00: Lunch
[courtesy of CRATE]
2.00 – 4.00: Timeline swaps / Co-Inquiry session #2
4.00 – 5.00: Speculative Design Masterclass
5.00 – 6.30: Scenario writing session
6.30 – 7.00: Scenario presentations & drinks
[courtesy of CRATE]
7.00 – 9.00: Screening Utopian/Dystopian visions
Sunday
AM
9.00 – 10.00: Networking & Breakfast
[courtesy of CRATE]
10.00 – 11.00: Co-Inquiry session #3
11.00 – 12.30: Speculative Design Masterclass
PM
12.30 – 1.15: Planning session
1.15 – 2.00: Lunch [courtesy of CRATE ]
2.00 – 4.30: Prep and fab
4.30 – 6.00: Shoot
6.00 – 8.30: Drinks & Open Forum /
Summing up of co-inquiry
