TOMORROWS: Urban fictions for possible futures
Edited by: Daphne Dragona & Panos Dragonas
Published: 2018
Publisher: Onassis Cultural Center - Athens
The future never felt closer than it does today. A series of environmental, technological and social shifts are affecting today’s world and the human’s role within it. Continuous urbanization, the impact of the anthropogenic activity on the natural environment, the increasing use of algorithmic systems in all sectors of life, and the growing asymmetries of power among territories and populations, are all central issues at stake. How possible is it to address the future and the changes already taking place?
This catalogue is published on the occasion of the exhibition “Tomorrows: Urban Fictions for Possible Futures” organized by Onassis Cultural Centre. Among the contributors: Aristide Antonas, James Bridle, Cathryn Dwyre & Chris Perry, Design Earth, Adam Harvey, Lydia Kallipoliti & Andreas Theodoridis, !Mediengruppe Bitnik, Metahaven, Shannon Mattern, Tobias Revell & Georgina Voss, Bruce Sterling, Point Supreme, Liam Young. Featuring the historical works of Constantinos A. Doxiadis and Takis Ch. Zenetos.
Publication copyright and similar rights: 2018, Onassis Cultural Centre-Athens
Essays copyright and similar rights: The authors
Individual projects copyright and similar rights: The artists
Exhibition photos copyright and similar rights: Mariana Bisti
Publication and essays: Creative Commons Attribution ShareAlike 4.0 International
Individual projects and exhibition photos:© All Rights Reserved
The Onassis Stegi - Athens is a creative hub for artists, audiences and ideas, which hosts events and actions across the whole spectrum of the arts from theatre, dance, music, cinema and the visual arts to digital and hybrid art and the written word.
It showcases contemporary cultural expression, supports Greek artists, cultivates international collaborations, explores the boundaries between science, art and society, and promotes lifelong learning for people of all ages.
A home for innovation in contemporary culture, engaging both Greek and global communities.
v=7-MJzDHePFw|The Tomorrows Exhibition with Panos Dragonas, Daphne Dragona
v=a5UtDYl7Nzs|Tomorrow's Storeys: Short interview with Liam Young
v=breQmPBz1YY|Tomorrow's Storeys: Short interview with Leigh Alexander
v=OOZwEKZaOKc|Tomorrow's Storeys: Short interview with Ioanna Bourazopoulou
v=rO5AxpzCWZE|Tomorrow's Storeys: Short interview with James Bridle
v=sMPHOmeSpZY|Tomorrow's Storeys: Short interview with Marina Gioti
v=cflzj6azR-E|Tomorrow's Storeys: Short interview with Bruce Stirling
v=0mL2vVww15E|Tomorrow's Storeys Final Presentation with Leigh Alexander, Ioanna Bourazopoulou, James Bridle, Daphne Dragona, Panos Dragonas, Marina Gioti, Bruce Stirling, Liam Young
v=s3dTF2Kir-o|"Techno-natural environments in the era of climate change" with Stefania Strouza & Foteini Setaki, Zenovia Toloudi and Michael Young
v=gsJcLXHjUUY|"Garments for a surveilled future" with Behnaz Farahi & Adam Harvey
v=qNJDUFscD-A|"Images from the city of tomorrow" with Penelope Haralambidou & Liam Young
v=ENIkhl70l3k|"Takis Ch. Zenetos: 'Electronic Urbanism', 40 years after" with Panos Dragonas, Lydia Kallipoliti, Manolis Marmaras, Yorgos Tzirtzilakis
3, Theatrou sq., 105 52
ORGANIZED BY
Onassis Cultural Centre-Athens
The Onassis Cultural Centre, Athens is a cultural space which hosts events and actions across the whole spectrum of the arts, from theatre, dance, music, cinema and the visual arts to digital and hybrid art and the written word. It showcases contemporary cultural expression, supports Greek artists, cultivates international collaborations, explores the boundaries between science, art and society, and promotes lifelong learning for people of all ages..
COORDINATION
Christos Carras
CURATED BY
Daphne Dragona, Panos Dragonas
Daphne Dragona is a Berlin based theorist and curator. She is part of the curatorial team of transmediale, festival for art and digital culture. Her current interests lie in post-digital artistic strategies and methodologies as well as in alternatives, counter-infrastructures and systems that aim for users' and citizens' critical empowerment. Her articles have been published in various books, journals, magazines and exhibition catalogues. She has collaborated with various institutions. Among her curated or co-curated projects are: Homo Ludens Ludens (Laboral, 2008), Mapping the Commons - Athens (National Museum of Contemporary Art, Athens, 2010), Data Bodies - Networked Portraits (Fundacion Telefonica & Alta Tecnologia Andina, 2011), Datenspiel/Dataplay (Goethe Institut Athens & Frown, 2013), Afresh (National Museum of Contemporary Art, Athens, 2013), Home/s (Goethe Institut Athens & Benaki Museum, 2013), New Babylon Revisited (Goethe Institut Athens, 3 137, Space Under, Circuits & Currents, 2014), the transmediale 2015 Capture All exhibition & conference program and the transmediale 2017 ever elusive conference program. She holds a PhD from the Faculty of Communication & Media Studies of the University of Athens.
Panos Dragonas is an architect and curator, professor of architecture and urban design at the University of Patras, Greece. In 2001, he established dragonas christopoulou architects (www.deltarchi.com) in collaboration with Varvara Christopoulou. From 2001 to 2013, he was consultant editor of the annual reviews Architecture in Greece and Design + Art in Greece. In 2012 he was joint commissioner and curator of Made in Athens, the Greek participation at the 13th International Architecture Exhibition - la biennale di Venezia. He has curated - alone or in collaboration - the exhibitions Adhocracy [Athens] (2015), Rethink Athens (2013), 14F/21GR: Young Architects from France and Greece (2012) and the 2nd Biennale of Young Greek Architects (1998). He has also co-curated the Rethink Athens - Urban Challenges cycle of events at the Onassis Cultural Centre (2013-15). In 2016 he was a Stanley J. Seeger Visiting Research Fellow at Princeton University. His current research and design activities focus on the transformations of the Greek cities during the economic crisis, the investigation of new housing typologies, and the connections between cinema, architecture and the modern city.
ORGANIZATION
Konstantina Soulioti
ARCHITECTURAL DESIGN
Panos Dragonas & Varvara Christopoulou
TECHNICAL PLANNING AND CONSTRUCTION
TENSOR S.A. (G. S. Papadimitriou & M. Pantelidaki)
LIGHTING
L4A “Lighting for Architecture”
AUDIOVISUAL INSTALLATION
Technical Management: Lefteris Karabilas
Administrative Assistance: Rebecca Stamou
Artworks’ installation: Panagiotis Roniotis
IT
Kostas Apollonios
Yannis Chazakis
ELECTRICAL INSTALLATION
Technical Management: John Koutsoupis
Administrative Assistance: Eleni Keratsa
Electricians: Dimitris Bougioukos, Nikos Issis
LINE PRODUCTION
Vassilis Panagiotakopoulos
LINE PRODUCTION ASSISTANT
George Linardakis
ARTWORKS TRANSPORTATION
MOVEART S.A.
ARCHIVES DIGITALIZATION – ARTWORKS PRINTING
GRAPHICON - KYRIAKIDES Α. & Ν.
VISUAL DESIGN
Beetroot
FRAMING
Nikos Sdralis
TRANSLATIONS – TEXT EDITING
Vassilis Douvitsas
PARALLEL EVENTS CURATED BY
Daphne Dragona, Panos Dragonas
PARALLEL EVENTS ORGANIZED BY
Iraklis Papatheodorou, Pasqua Vorgia
EDUCATIONAL PROGRAMMES CURATED & ORGANIZED BY
Myrto Lavda, Eleanna Semitelou
VENUE
Diplareios School
3, Theatrou sq., 105 52
The future never felt closer than it does today. A series of environmental, technological, and social shifts are changing the planet, forcing us to reassess our place on it. The Earth resembles a city which keeps on sprawling outwards while other areas are abandoned due to climate change and extreme socio-political conditions. Life in the urban environment is reorganized thanks to intelligent systems constantly processing human and machinic behavior. Artificial ecologies promise to offer solutions to the problems of the ever-growing global population. As diverse images, once belonging to the future, become more and more part of the present, an urge to understand the ongoing phenomena becomes apparent.
The Tomorrows exhibition unfolds the multiple aspects the future presents today through the works of artists, architects, and designers. Of course, dealing with the future is not new in these fields. Renowned are the visionary architectural proposals of the 60s which addressed the promises of the new networks, and the possibilities of overcoming environmental problems, thanks to the technological advance. The speculative scenarios, and long research projects of the time – such as the Electronic Urbanism by Takis Ch. Zenetos – aimed to imagine and influence changes towards a desirable future. Nowadays, dealing with the future is once again timely but the proposals coming from the fields of art, design, and architecture, are in a somehow different context. In less anticipation of tomorrow’s worlds, contemporary narratives rather start from the challenges and the contradictions that shape the images of the future. The current scenarios are exaggerated, unexpected, and often paradoxical, aiming to raise questions, and to provoke discussions. Furthermore, taking into consideration that the future reaches different geographical areas at a different pace, many of today’s hypotheses underline the role of the local conditions and needs. The works of the exhibition emphasize the particularities of different areas; special attention is given to the cities of the Mediterranean region, whose future seems to be specified by the economic crisis, the climate change, and mass population movements.
The exhibition takes both as a starting and a reference point the Ecumenopolis by Constantinos Doxiadis, the city that by the 22nd century would have occupied the whole of the inhabited planet. According to the visionary city planner, the desirable development of the future city for the human and the environment was based on the relation and balance between five fundamental elements, i.e. nature, shells, networks, society and anthropos [the human]. The five elements of Doxiadis's Ekistiks are used in the context of this exhibition to study the components of the future, and also to render understandable the changes in our expectations for the future. Five themes deriving from the five respective elements become, therefore, points of exploration; they are used as basic notions for the exhibition, and not as strict categories. This way, the fundamental elements of Doxiadis are transformed, redefined, and possibly reversed, while returning to one key and central question: Which future is, at the end, the one we want, and what will be our role within its formation?