summ( )n

Oh, I almost typed ‘co-computing’ But no, it’s still more or less conventional ‘co-creating the future’: The New York Times invited people to contribute with their predictions about the future of computers and computing (as well as to evaluate and comment on the predictions of others).

The result is an interactive – and growing – roadmap of the possible futures; I particularly like that it’s also a map of the ‘possible pasts’. Although this part is not open for contribution, and still invites to think what else would one add to these milestones.

According to the Credit Suisse’s latest study the major growth of consumption in the near future will happen in China and/or India; you also have more chances to meet people eager to spend in Brazil, Russia, Indonesia or Turkey – this is where the bank expect to see the highest growth of consumption in the near future.

I was obviously attracted by the title of the blog posting about the coming UK fair Kinetic 2012 – Art Fair of the Future. Part of the ‘obviousness’ is the combo of ‘art’ and ‘future’ – Summ()n is always interested in this area; but coincidentally I am now working on the presentation titled ‘Art and the Futures’, so I should find a lot of ‘food for thought’ in this event, to be held in London from 8th till 12th of February. Too bad I won’t be able to travel there, but at least they put a lot of interesting projects online, to watch and to learn from.

The image above is from the Daan Roosegaarde’s already classical installation Liquid Space 6.0. I am in fact somewhat surprised that they decided to use such an ‘old’ piece (old by the digital pace, of course). I remember seeing in 2009 already – see a small video I made in Rotterdam. But it’s a great project anyway, so why not?

I hope to write more small pieces about various artists and their projects, as I will be going through their website, and then throughout the tweets and the images of the visitors when they will start appearing.

We wish all to our clients and partners a very merry Christmas, warm and relaxing holidays and a happy and prosperous 2012!

“I find that when someone’s taking tome to do something right in the present, they’re a perfectionist with no ability to prioritize, whereas when someone took time to do something right in the past, the’re a master artisan of great foresight”. – 974

Too many meetings and event, and too little time to write about them here! Besides, we are working on the new website for Summ()n, so my energy goes more to the ‘future’, rather than to the maintaining the current flow of information. But some of impressions are too vivid to skip, so I will try to post at least the visual impressions from the last two weeks or so.

Glow is an annual festival of light and art in Eindhoven, and it tends to be always good. This year’s edition has definitely exceeded the expectations, and presented a large number of magnificent works. The one above was not really a new work, it is a remake of the now famous installation ‘Burning Van Abbe Museum’, by Xavier de Richemont. It worth to watch a video to imagine how it all looked in reality.

Multimedia installations Lichtschilderij (‘lightpaiting’) on the Stadhuis building by Artslide & Spectaculaires (above) and Charm on Speed on the Catharinakerk by
Projectil (below) were both new and not so new. The exact compositions were novel, but the overall experience is somewhat similar to the previous years.

But the entire area of TUe campus was a masterpiece – from the Glowing Carpets’ at the Nabij Kennispoort to the lighting poems on the main building, and to the smaller installations all over the places, all was one great inspirational feast.

My favorite installation of this year is Prometheus, that combined – not even light, but lightening – with music and video. People were silent in awe and admiration when listening these mini-performances and then bursted with applause – to both the might of nature, and the might of culture. Again, the video can give a better feeling.

I wonder if they will bring aurora borealis next time?

Two bullets don’t hit one hole, they say. Apparently, it’s not the case with ‘future conferences’ – in addition to the one on the Future of the Future I just wrote about, there will be another interesting event in Amsterdam this Saturday, the so called ‘Power Show‘ of the Next Nature collective, where they are going to showcase about 20 different ‘visions of the future’, some more provocative than others.

I can only add that this also coincides with the annual Museum Night (MN8) in the city, and a lot of other interesting things will be happening around. Worth popping up, if you can.

There will be an interesting event at the Club of Amsterdam tomorrow, an evening conference called The Future of the Future; the very title is already quite provocative, and I look forward to interesting presentations – including by Andrea Wiegman from Second Sight, Arjen Kamphuis from Gendo, and Anders Sandberg from the Future of Humanity Institute, Oxford University – as well as for the open debates.

Quantum Levitation

The latest issue of the Lapham’s Quarterly is nothing but future (still ‘the’ one, and without ‘s’, but a good start anyway). I wrote about this publications about a year ago or so, when they published the issue on games, and playing. But back then the content was not available online; this time the majority of the articles and other materials can be found on their website.

As always with the Lapham’s Quarterly, it’s a great collection of very diverse accounts – of writers and artists, of philosophers and scientists – who thought about this complex matter of ‘the future’. Often very paradoxical and unexpected, these stories and pictures are both inspiring and informative; but ‘informative’ not in a sense of updating about the latest ‘trends’ and ‘foresights’, but rather on the different ways of thinking about the future(s). Good food for thought.

Jonas Bendiksen – Rocket debris near the Baikonur Cosmodrome, Kazakhstan (2000)