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- Convenors:
-
Karl Palmas
(Chalmers University of Technology)
Ulises Navarro Aguiar (University of Gothenburg)
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- Chairs:
-
Karl Palmas
(Chalmers University of Technology)
Ulises Navarro Aguiar (University of Gothenburg)
- Format:
- Traditional Open Panel
Short Abstract
Commenting upon the suggestion that our time is marked by a "slow cancellation of the future", Richard Tutton has called for empirically-oriented studies of “futurelessness”. This panel explores whether or not this sense of “lost futures” is indeed experienced within the design professions.
Description
Starting in the late noughties, cultural theorist Mark Fisher observed how the contemporary social condition is marked by the loss of a future. (Fisher, 2013) Tormented by the loss of political dreams that failed to materialize, he described a cultural state of being “haunted” by memories of a time when one could hope for a better, alternative future. Citing social philosopher Franco Berardi, Fisher argued his generation had been witness to a “slow cancellation of the future”.
More recently, sociologist and STS scholar Richard Tutton (2023) has pointed out that these accounts are presented by theorists concerned about alternative futures to neoliberalism. While valid in their own right, Tutton points out, they “offer little empirical evidence that such feelings are experienced by groups of people in their everyday lives”. (Tutton, 2023: 448) He thus calls for a more empirically-oriented studies of “futurelessness” – a term sourced from psychology, based on studies of young people who find that their personal future opportunities are foreclosed, implying that it is futile to plan for the future.
Heeding this call, this panel invites contributions that provide further empirical substantiation of whether or not a sense of “lost futures” or “futurelessness” is indeed experienced in particular professional settings. For Fisher, the loss of the future can be traced in popular culture – not least pop music – which seems to have lost the ability to grasp the present, and produce work that consciously seeks to articulate alternative futures. In this vein, this panel invites empirically informed work that focuses on how such a loss of futures is – or isn’t – expressed within the design professions, such as design, architecture, planning, or engineering.
References
Fisher, M. (2014) Ghosts of My Life: Writings on depression, hauntology and lost futures. Winchester: ZerO Books.
Tutton, R. (2022). The Sociology of Futurelessness. Sociology, 57(2).
Accepted papers
Paper short abstract
Juxtaposing Lana Del Rey’s hauntological aesthetics with recent architectural design research, the paper shows how the past can be mobilized to respond to futurelessness.
Paper long abstract
While Mark Fisher argued that contemporary culture is haunted by lost futures, STS scholars have called for empirical investigations into how such temporal conditions are experienced in everyday life. This paper responds to this call through two empirical sites: the nostalgic atmosphere surrounding Lana Del Rey’s music, which offers insight into the affective experience of futurelessness in pop culture, and architect Brandon Clifford’s The Cannibal’s Cookbook (2022), which experiments with past building practices as resources for future-making.
First, I conceptualize longing after nostalgic atmospheres (LANA): a cultural mood-world shaped by socio-technical assemblages surrounding the popular cultural phenomenon Lana Del Rey. Drawing on qualitative analysis of lyrics, visual aesthetics, and their circulation and discussion in digital media, I argue that Del Rey’s hauntological musical universe makes the affective condition of futurelessness empirically observable in contemporary culture.
Second, I juxtapose this analysis with perspectives from architectural design research and literature on future-making to show how fragments from the past – whether Lana Del Rey’s temporal collages of vintage American glamour or Clifford’s speculative design experiments with the construction principles of Inca masonry – can exceed nostalgia and become resources for responding to lost futures.
Clifford’s design research demonstrates how the past can be mobilized materially through a “projective archaeology” to reopen possibilities for future-making. Applying this projective archaeological lens to Del Rey’s nostalgic atmospheres, the paper argues that hauntological cultural forms can likewise function as reservoirs of fragments that listeners recombine into new imaginaries of the future.
Paper short abstract
This paper presents some reflections on a series of pedagogical exercises in which design master students engaged in speculative designing. It will explore how future and futurelessness figured in their design process and result.
Paper long abstract
Bifo Berardi has argued that the twentieth century was “the century that trusted in the future” and that we then moved on to a “century with no future”. In contemporary design, the rise of speculative projects and approaches can be seen as evidence of a growing sense of futurelessness among designers whereby the very idea of the future is problematized. Arguably, speculative design is deeply hauntological. The notion of hauntology denotes how the absent future makes itself present as a loss. This paper presents some reflections on a series of pedagogical exercises in which design master students engaged in speculative designing. It will explore how future and futurelessness figured in their design process and result.
Paper short abstract
This paper will present the results of a study of architects and planners active in Gothenburg around the time of the city's 400-year jubilee. Using film elicitation as a method, the study identifies five different approaches to the future, expressed by the design professionals in question.
Paper long abstract
In 2023, the city of Gothenburg celebrated its 400-year jubilee. Like the previous jubilee, in 1923, it had a considerable impact on the city's architecture and urban development. The 1923 jubilee followed the tradition of Great Exhibitions, exhibiting the best of what that time could offer, pointing optimistically towards a future of progress - a kind of future-orientedness that the 2023 jubilee lacked.
This paper will present the results of a study of architects and planners active in Gothenburg around the time of the jubilee. The underlying study was based on film elicitation as a method: Following pilot interviews with selected architects and planners, an essay film was produced. This was later screened on five occasions, to an audience of other professionals operating in these fields. Prompted by the film, the professionals deliberated on the futures that are or are not expressed in the 2023 jubilee architecture.
Through this approach, five different approaches to the future were identified. Thus, the paper will outline the worldviews of "Unreformed modernists", "Style pluralists", "Eternal beauty romantics", "Resigned pessimists" and "Professional realists". These divergent approaches to the future suggest that while Mark Fisher's thesis of "the slow cancellation of the future" is indeed applicable to contemporary architecture and planning. However, the empirical reality is suggests a somewhat more nuanced picture of the extent to which the future is lost among the studied architects and planners.