[artinfo] The 9th World Futurological Congress, 2016-2018: Man the Pumps!

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9th World Futurological Congress
2016-2018 (we expect difficulties)

<http://futurological-congress.com/>futurological-congress.com

"The Eighth World Futurological Congress was held 
in Costa Rica. To tell the truth, I never would 
have gone to Nounas if it hadn't been for 
Professor Tarantoga, who gave me clearly to 
understand that this was expected of me. He also 
said pointedly that space travel nowadays was an 
escape from the problems of Earth. That is, one 
took off for the stars in the hope that the worst 
would happen and be done with in one's absence. 
And indeed I couldn't deny that more than once I 
had peered anxiously out the porthole-especially 
when returning from a long voyage-to see whether 
or not our planet resembled a burnt potato. So I 
didn't argue the point with Tarantoga, but only 
remarked that, really, I wasn't much of an expert 
on futurology. His reply was that hardly anyone 
knows a thing about pumping, and yet we don't 
stand idly by when we hear the cry of 'Man the 
pumps!'"
-excerpt from: The Futurological Congress (from the memoirs of Ijon Tichy)
Published in Polish in 1971, English translation 1974

The 9th Futurological Congress is

-A journey with familiar spirits.

-A temporary reality with a nomadic appearance 
that as a whole is not bound to a certain place 
or time.

-A testing ground for ideas, searching for 
glimpses of utopia and an aesthetics of 
possibilities. 

-A wide-open playground for imagination and 
future scenarios in old, new and adapted forms of 
speculation.

-Exposing tensions between notions of utopia, 
today's reality, and histories past. We prefer to 
see these three notions as circular time loops, 
rather than accepting that the future is only 
that which is ahead of us.

-Interrogating the mechanisms of control, command 
and obedience over peoples, bodies, and nature in 
the name of an ideology-even if it is disguised 
as an utopia.

-Exploring how historical material reaches the 
present and turns into the future, and which 
changes it undergoes in this very process when it 
becomes part of the mental landscape.

-An open, rhizomatic structure; a growing and 
living archive in motion; a future database 
storing the proceedings of the 9th Futurological 
Congress, but also fictional accounts, and all 
manners of dreams.

-Intrinsically collaborative, looking for 
partners and supporters, and attempting to 
integrate all fields that contemplate ideas from 
and about the future.

-Held together/documented/archived/developed both 
online and physically over a period of two years. 
<http://futurological-congress.com>futurological-congress.com will 
become an online place for debate and exchange, 
considering the experiences and commenting on 
them, proposing and thinking all the time. 
Narration is supposed to sneak in, too, sometimes 
via the back door.

Some of the themes to be explored in the 9th Futurological Congress are:

The future ofŠ.
Animals, Apple, Art, Borders, Collectivity, 
Conversation, Craft, Difference, Domination, 
Drugs, Energy, Fiction, Food, Gender, Geography, 
Hegemony, History, Images, Labor, Language, Love, 
Nature, Money, Memory, Past, Play, Politics, 
Race, Resourcefulness, Science, Stupidity, 
Theatre, Travel, Uncertainty, War, Weather, 
Writing


The chairpersons of the 9th Futurological Congress are:
Julieta Aranda
Paolo Chiasera
Mareike Dittmer

Director at large
Ijon Tichy


With the invaluable participation of:
Karen Archey, Michael Bracewell, Benjamin 
Bratton, Ory Dessau, Susanne von Falkenhausen, 
Paul Feigelfeld, Natasha Ginwala, Francesco Gori, 
Raphael Gygax, Ed Keller, Adam Kleinman, Chus 
Martínez, Antonia Majaca, Daniel Muzyczuk, Pedro 
Neves Marques, Paulina Olowska, Filipa Ramos, 
Vivian Sky Rehberg, Rory Rowan, Mohammad Salemmy, 
Marcus Steinweg, Jennifer Teets, Ana Teixeira 
Pinto, Anton Vidokle, and Joanna Warsza

(amongst many other that will come on board over the next two years)

Hoping very much that you too will become part of the future,

Sincerely,
Ijon Tichy

For further information about the 9th 
Futurological Congress, and to receive our 
newsletter, please visit: 
<http://futurological-congress.com/>futurological-congress.com or 
write us at 
<mailto:info at futurological-congress.com>info at futurological-congress.com.