Abstract:
Over the last decade there have been a significant number of art exhibitions worldwide exploring the topics of utopia, dystopia and our changing relationship with natural and built environments. The genre of science fiction has been increasingly explored, part of a general trend of artists and curators looking to literature and landscape as means of expressing ideas about possible futures and systems of living. The general theme has been if, and how, humanity will adapt, psychologically and materially, to a warming planet and an impending energy crisis, after the explosive growth of the twentieth century. This essay attempts to define the cultural Zeitgeist I have dubbed ‘contemporary futurism’, and examines how the structures and processes of economy and ecology have been recently reflected in visual art, while also considering David Harvey’s proposal that we think of a utopianism of process rather than of spatial form. It looks at the criticality of utopian processes in the work of Phoebe Washburn; focuses on the exhibition ‘After Nature’, held at the New Museum in 2008, as an example of dystopian visions in contemporary art; and examines Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster’s science fiction-inspired installation TH. 2058.
Details / PDF:
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