Nikola Bojić
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Gediminas Urbonas, ACT director, Nomeda Urboniene, MIT research affiliate, Lucas Freeman, ACT writer in residence, Nikola Bojić, ACT visiting lecturer, and Ashley Rizzo Moss, ACT senior communications & public programs assistant
in collaboration with the Occupational Hazard (OH-) Project, Keilir Academy and the Keflavik Airport Development Corporation
During 13 – 16 October, 2016 A___Zooetics (a project exploring intersections between human, non-human and poetic knowledge spheres—zooetics.net), invited an international group of scientists, artists, designers, theorists and writers to stay and work at Ásbrú, the site of a former NATO base on the Reykjanes peninsula in Iceland. The three days of explorations that took place on and near the base will be staged and performed at Reykjavík Art Museum in conversation with a keynote lecture by sociologist Jennifer Gabrys (Goldsmiths, University of London, UK, author of Program Earth: Environmental Sensing Technology and the Making of a Computational Planet).
The transition of Ásbrú from a fenced-off military zone to a creative-economy incubator inspires a lot of questions about the technoscientific imaginaries feeding this transition and fueling our sense of the future. These kinds of military infrastructures are already incorporated into the future fictional narratives of a seamless transition towards innovation, resource extraction and subservience to global market forces. The Future Fictions Summit enacted a think tank that performed a variety of excavations into past and future narratives of Ásbrú as a laboratory of Iceland and the high North. The findings of this gathering comprise of a series of models that invite a reprogramming of relations between the body, territory and nonhuman forms of life, opening up alternative temporalities and uncanny sensorial powers. In these models, algae that resides on Hafnir shores in the vicinity of Ásbrú are offered as a source of transformation on a variety of scales—from the intimate to the oceanic. The gathering and summit were co-developed and hosted by Occupational Hazards project, an initiative of scientists and artists based in Iceland investigating the site of Ásbrú and its unresolved narratives.
Future Fictions Summit contributors: Nomeda & Gediminas Urbonas, artists (Massachusetts Institute of Technology, USA), Tinna Grétarsdóttir and Sigurjón Baldur Hafsteinsson, anthropologists (University of Iceland, IS); Oksana Anilionytė, fashion designer (Royal College of Art, UK); Nikola Bojić, designer (Massachusetts Institute of Technology, USA); Garðar Eyjólfsson, designer (Iceland Academy of the Arts, IS); Lucas Freeman, writer (Massachusetts Institute of Technology, USA); Eydís Mary Jónsdóttir (IS); Ashley Rizzo Moss, performer (Massachusetts Institute of Technology, USA); Thomas Pausz, designer (Iceland Academy of the Arts, IS); Kristupas Sabolius, philosopher (Vilnius University, LT); Hildigunnur Sverrisdóttir, architect (Iceland Academy of the Arts, IS); Viktorija Šiaulytė, curator (LT); Sigrún Thorlacius, designer (IS); Tracey Warr, writer (UK).
Supported by: Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Lithuania and Lithuanian Council for Culture, Nordic Culture Point, University of Iceland, Icelandic Ministry of Education, Science and Culture, The Icelandic Art Fund, Kadeco and Uppbyggingarsjóður Suðurnesja. A___Zooetics is part of the Outreach and Education Program of the Frontiers in Retreat project (2013–2018, EACEA 2013-1297). Frontiers in Retreat has been funded with support from the European Commission. This communication reflects the views only of the authors, and the Commission cannot be held responsible for any use of the information contained herein.
More information:
info@zooetics.net
