OFF BRATISLAVA
This story is set in a year 3000, centuries after the world’s information infrastructure was wiped out by a massive geomagnetic storm. Technology and knowledge have been erased and a dark age reappeared. A different version of this story says that the world's information infrastructure was taken over by artificial intelligence. After the robot uprising the computer programs became the dominant life form on Earth. The vision of the future world is open, multifaceted, and contradictory and brings countless possibilities for interpretation in artistic storytelling.
From horoscopes to shamanic rituals, humans have always tried to envision what will come. Today, trusting prophecies and predictions has become part of our day to day life. From the weather forecast to the time the satellite navigation says we will reach the destination; our lives are built around futuristic fictions. The pairing of scientific knowledge and imagination can create a series of hypotheses. They are all somewhat lodged between futurology and science fiction. It is this sense of hopeful artistic imagination that we think urgently needs to be incorporated back into today’s scientific predictions.
Futurology emphasizes the creative function of our critical thinking. The future is not a fixed point, and there is a broad range of theories we can organize into at least four categories: plausible, probable, possible, and preferable. They help us to organize our thoughts and understanding of how likely various scenarios are to occur. These sequences of events have the potential to unfold in many directions and our aim is to analyze their concepts and trends in order to forecast upcoming developments.
Art always had the power to foretell the future. Through creative and artistic thinking, visionaries always contributed to scientific predictions. In the last decades the borders between art, science and philosophy are being erased. Science is borrowing principles and methods of artistic thinking and vice versa; art is borrowing the tools of scientific experimentation. Thanks to technological developments art has the possibility to progress, advance, and evolve within new mediums and platforms. New formats of expression are allowing humans to manifest themselves in a way that reflects the technological advancements of the current era. We invited artists to think even further ahead and to bring their concept of the third millennium to this year’s festival.
Festival z verejných zdrojov podporil Fond na podporu umenia.
Nad podujatím prebral záštitu primátor hlavného mesta SR Bratislava.