Conjectural Futures Conference
2 days of talks and workshops for strategists, visionaries, innovators and designers.
17th and 18th of November 2022,
Kaiserbahnhof, Potsdam
9:30
Arrival and breakfast
Session
1
Make some space! Eating, moving and thinking about the new city.
(Session: Steel, Bedö, Verkade)
A city is larger than itself. Its manifold relationships stretch through space and time. Different periods and ideas, current and ancient connections layer and manifest themselves in its streets, market squares, architectures and facades. How we live, feed and move in cities has an impact far beyond them. They interact with their surroundings – landscapes, countries, the whole world – that they shape and are shaped by. At the same time, this dynamic relationship is often overlaid by the static normality of its concrete structures and infrastructures, a fast-moving but unchanging status quo. This combination of dynamic entanglement and concrete tangibility in our everyday urban experience allows us to think and develop other futures through new urban designs and a changed conception of urbanity. Can we change the world by changing the city?
Session
2
Tipping scales – tracing links from particle to planet.
(Session: Neukart, Trojok, Klose)
Sometimes, the biggest changes take place in the smallest details. In the 19th century, organic chemistry discovered fossil hydrocarbons, the basic building blocks of petromodernity. The consequences of this discovery – the unleashed availability of energy and the ability to shape material into basically any form – still make up our reality: leisure, freedom, division of labour, nutrition, knowledge society and Tupperware parties on the one hand; geopolitical conflicts, exploitation of people, natural disasters and climate change on the other. What the historical mobilisation of hydrocarbons was to energy and materials, the emerging manipulation of quantum states might be to information, or the designability of genetic functions to life.
A petro-modern perspective on the history and present shows us how important it is to look for connecting lines between the very small and the very large. What does this perspective tell us about current future technologies? How can we imagine the implications of bio and quantum technologies? What approaches and tools can we use?
Program
Thursday, Nov. 17th
Friday, Nov. 18th
Speakers
Kwamou Eva Feukeu
Legal scholar & Anticipation Specialist Kwamou Eva Feukeu develops participatory action research processes with communities and governments. The assumption is simple: even if the future does not exist, who gets to decide what it can or should look like holds the power over us all. Up until today, looking up the curve of the horizon is the privilege of the few. Despite it all, we are all blind as long as we don’t come together to make sense of it. Having the ability to design learning spaces using the non-existent future offers the opportunity for people to create value differently and more meaningfully.
Alexander Klose
Alexander Klose, with his group Beauty of Oil, traces for us the effect of petrochemical molecules, their extraction, harnessing and disposal on the development of modern societies. By looking at the present and the past through the lens of a class of molecules, he dissects for us ideas, achievements and dynamics of oil modernity and asks: what do we want to and can we leave behind, what can we take with us what can we transform on the way to a post-fossil future.
Rüdiger Trojok
As a DIY biohacker, Rüdiger Trojok seeks the connections of “the molecules of life” with their future potentials and dangers. The practical approach and the openness of DIY biology on the one hand opens up the social imagination and on the other hand enables a debate on the limits and possibilities of this technology on a broad basis.
Dr. Florian Neukart
Quantum-powered technologies are no longer only an exciting leitmotif for science fiction. Quantum technologies are set to transform everything we know today, from business to society, and our planet. According to a recent McKinsey study, four industries—pharmaceuticals, chemicals, automotive, and finance—remain on track to become the first beneficiaries of quantum advantages, with the potential to capture nearly $700 billion in value as early as 2035. What are investment strategies to explore the power of quantum technologies and where do we see the potential for early industry application?
Carolyn Steel
Architect and historian Carolyn Steel shows us how cities are historically shaped by our food systems and how we might eat our way to a livable future.
Thalia Verkade
Journalist and author Thalia Verkade invites us to reimagine the role of streets in the city. She shows how established ideas about the city and mobility have been shaped historically and where to start if we want to radically redesign the city as a living space.
Dr. Viktor Bedö
Design researcher Dr. Viktor Bedö experimentally explores possibilities for rethinking cities and mobility. He tells us about a logistical field test for automated distribution of commons like rescued food.
Impressions
