Staging Futures: Exhibition Making and Design as a Speculation Apparatus

The promise and menace of the future occupies a special place in our collective subconscious—and increasingly, across multiple industries. From speculative design to corporate foresight, from worldbuilding for cinema to new immersive media, the image of the future is being refracted into a widening spectrum of visions and horizons. The plural notion of 'futures' suggests a multiplicity of trajectories and choices for the society and for humankind. How are cultural institutions tapping into this contemporary gyre of obsessing about futures? How can the apparatus of an exhibition, or a spectacle in any tactile or immersive medium, facilitate encounters with the emergent and invite audiences to engage with futures? And what are the specific contributions of architectural speculation—an integral part of architectural pedagogy, discipline, and practice—to the landscape of futures thinking? In this panel discussion, four practitioners demonstrate and discuss how curation, exhibition architecture, and concept, narrative, and production design across the narrative arts can make the future come alive—as windows onto what may or may not come to pass, or as a means of cultural engineering in the present.

Speakers:

• Adam Bandler, Principal, OFICINA.LA; Exhibition Designer, Views of Planet City
  
• Doris Berger, Vice-President, Curatorial Affairs, Academy Museum; Curator, Cyberpunk: Envisioning Possible Futures through Cinema
• Samantha Culp, Writer, Filmmaker, and Strategist
• Nora N. Khan, independent critic, essayist, curator, editor, and educator

Convened and Moderated by:

• Namik Mackic, Research Program Manager, SCI-Arc; Organizer, Views of Planet City