Visiting Researcher in Aalto University Wilson Matthew C.

Factitious Futures

| Yksivuotinen

In the suspended animation of isolation there can be a heightening of imagination. When scientists cannot go to their laboratories to perform experiments, they can still perform thought experiments. This is a time to seed speculative thinking. As many inertial operations of the world have slowed, it will be easier to apply forces to alter their future trajectories. During the home residency I focus on the questions: What could be? What is possible? The result will be a series of “Factitious Futures.” The landscape of the future is an imaginary mapped by fictions, speculations, and films. Choice and chance will chart the course through it. To develop the “Factitious Futures” I will bring together scientific and artistic modes of thought. I will dive into the most recent scientific literature from fields that are likely to shape the future, including synthetic biology, quantum computing, artificial intelligence, cognitive neuroscience, geo-engineering, and so on. I will also work remotely with scientific researchers in my network. Both in my own work and in those collaborative conversations, possible futures will be mapped using various “worlding” workshops and methods of speculative thinking. We will pay careful attention to non-linear developments resulting from the joining of fields that are now largely separate and the application of technologies from one field to a new domain. Ecological and social concerns will be given significant consideration. The “Factitious Futures” will be informed by queer, feminist, post-colonial and indigenous perspectives on the future. “Factitious Futures” will materialize in the form of fictions and film scripts, collages and animations. These “Factitious Futures” will feed into the pre-production process for a film project. I will also invest time in building skills that expand and refine my moving image practice, in all phases of the process: pre-production, scriptwriting; production, directing; and post-production, effects.