Category Archives: Futurism

ifa proudly presents a new major commission by Rasheedah Phillips (Black Quantum Futurism) as part of the constantly growing web-based project ARE YOU FOR REAL, which started in 2020.

The artwork entitled Mmere Dane: Black Time Belt maps several historic all-Black towns and Freedom Colonies around the United States, many destroyed by displacement, development, racist violence, and environmental injustice.The site functions as a speculative archive of an alternative past-present-future where all those towns survive and form a network of Black temporal zonesor a Black Time Beltprotecting their communities from the impacts of temporal oppression, namely unhealthy measures of time as linear and progressive. Mmere Dane: Black Time Belt evades linear progressive histories and the legacies of spatial displacement of Black communities, allowing for a transcendence of space-time, and demonstrating potent examples and possibilities for Black land sovereignty, self-governance, temporal autonomy and spatial agency.Mmere Dane, an Adinkra symbol meaning time changes or times change in the Akan language, signifies the dynamic nature of change and the temporary nature of any state of events.

Rasheedah Phillips is a US-based queer housing attorney, parent, and interdisciplinary artist whose writing has appeared in Keywords for Radicals, Temple Political & Civil Rights Law Review, The Funambulist, e-flux Architecture, Recess Arts, and more. Phillips is the founder of the AfroFuturist Affair, a founding member of Metropolarity Queer Speculative Fiction Collective, cofounder of Black Quantum Futurism (BQF), and cocreator of Community Futures Lab. As part of BQF and as a solo artist, Phillips is currently a CERN artist-in-residence, a Vera List Center Fellow, and a Knight Art + Tech Fellow, was formerly a Pew fellow and A Blade of Grass fellow, and has exhibited, presented, been in residence, and/or performed at the Institute of Contemporary Art and the Serpentine Gallery in London, the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, the Philadelphia Museum of Art, Red Bull Arts, Chicago Architecture Biennial, Manifesta Biennial, and more.

Initiated by ifa and curated by Julia Grosse, Paula Nascimento, and Yvette Mutumba, ARE YOU FOR REAL launched in December 2020 and is conceived as a participatory project testing interactive artistic practices. It brings together artists, researchers, filmmakers, writers, and coders to create new works, each offering a different understanding of and approach towards the concept of reality.It is about engaging with and visualizing the connections between people, thoughts, things, and places that occur through the trading and training of data. It addresses the material and immaterial aspects of the digital, and how both are perceived from the perspectives of various disciplines.

ARE YOU FOR REAL aims to create an international cultural exchange as well as a contemporary co-creative practice of exhibition-making. The artworks produced change over the course of the project, as new artists join and take over, add and react.

Further projects by artists Nolan Oswald Dennis and Nushin Yazdani & Can Karaalioglu (feat. Aylin Karabulut, Dounia Hagenauer, Rafiou Bayor, Tiara Roxanne, and Ulla Heinrich), Mathias Becker, Ruben S. Brgam, George Demir, Gertruda Gilyte, Marcel Heise, Sayaka Katsumoto, Zaidda Nursiti Kemal, Yuyen Lin-Woywod, Luza Luz, Tho Pooga, Xiaoyu Tang, Andi Teichmann, Dior Thiam as well as contributors Ibrahim Ciss & Asmaa Jama, Joo Renato Orecchia Ziga, Nelly Y. Pinkrah, Ainslee Alem Robson & Kidus Hailesilassie, and Michelle M. Wright can be experienced on the ARE YOU FOR REAL website. More to come soon...

The ARE YOU FOR REAL website is designed and developed by Yehwan Song.

About ifaifa (Institut fr Auslandsbeziehungen) is Germanys oldest intermediary organisation for international cultural relations. It promotes a peaceful and enriching coexistence between people and cultures worldwide. ifa supports artistic and cultural exchange in exhibition, dialogue and conference programmes, and it acts as a centre of excellence for international cultural relations. It is part of a global network and relies on sustainable, long-term partnerships. It is supported by the Federal Foreign Office of the Federal Republic of Germany, the state of Baden-Wrttemberg and its capital Stuttgart.

For further information:art [at] ifa.de /presse [at] ifa.de

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ARE YOU FOR REAL: new work by Rasheedah Phillips - Announcements - E-Flux

You wouldn't tokenize a parade float. Parade Rainer

Macys announced ahead of this years Turkey Day that its releasing digital reproductions of some of its iconic Thanksgiving Parade floats as non-fungible tokens (NFTs) in the name of charity and, we presume, because nothing matters anymore.

First reported byBusiness Insider, this logical endpoint of all things crapitalism is being split up into three categories classic, rare, and ultra rare with 10 of the most unique floats being auctioned off on the Sweet NFT platform and 100 percent of the proceeds going to the Make-A-Wish Foundation.

The charitable aspect is, perhaps, the only redeeming quality of this publicity stunt. Macys is touting that, along with the Polygon blockchain-based Sweet platform, itsminted a special smart contract on each of its NFTs that will automatically donate 10 percent of every resold image to Make-A-Wish in perpetuity.

Along with the 10 ultra rare reproductions of past floats, Macys is also releasing an additional 9,500 NFTs on Thanksgiving Day for free, with the aforementioned reselling caveat.

AsBI reported, the Macys NFTs were designed by the Reometry digital agency, which is led by artists Seth Brown and REO, hence the name. In one sense, the way theyve gone about these designs showcasing not just floats that will be in this years 95th Macys Thanksgiving Parade but also past floats is a fairly interesting exploration of digital art.

Not that were praising this project or its artists too much.

Take, for example, this description from another REO NFT, the title of which Youll Never Find Someone Who Wont Hurt You contains a double negative as infuriating as its description:

This was inspired by a voice in my head during a monumental trip, the artist wrote. A very real truth I had been avoiding and needed to hear. When I posted it, it caused a deep conversation in the comment section of my instagram. Half of the people were like take this down its promoting hate and others completely understood what it really meant. Im excited for this piece to be my first on foundation.

The artist sold that NFT for the Ethereum equivalent of $6,500, and the REO-codesigned 1950s Spaceman float is bidding highest among the Macys NFTs at $5,200 and the bidding closes on November 30.

So if you want to spend thousands of dollars on a GIF of a Thanksgiving Parade float with a little person walking underneath who looks deceptively like a character from Nickelodeons mid-aughts classic Jimmy Neutrondesigned by an artist who ripped off the Be Here Now aesthetic,nows your chance.

More on NFTs: The US Government Says These NFTs Are Now Illegal

Even more NFT cringe:Watch Post Malone Buy An NFT While We Slowly Chart Our Descent Into Hell

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Macy's Is Hawking Its Thanksgiving Parade Balloons as NFTs Because Nothing Matters Anymore - Futurism

He does want to miss a thing. Rough Necks

NASA invited movie star Bruce Willis to the launch of a spacecraft thats gonna smash into an asteroid to see if we could deflect a killer space rock thats the plot to Williss 1998 Armageddon, for those keeping score but he apparently had better things to do.

AsThe Washington Posts Christian Davenport tweeted, NASA Administrator Bill Nelson admitted that Willis isnt attending the launch of the much-anticipated Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) mission, even though the agency invited him explicitly due to his role in the Michael Bay blockbuster.

We didnt want to miss that connection, Nelson said in what is hopefully a nod to the classic Aerosmith love song that served as the films theme song.

For those who were not blessed enough to have watched the film, which featured Aerosmiths Steven Tyler crooning I Dont Want To Miss a Thing during a love scene starring his real-life daughter Liv Tyler, the plot revolves around a scenario similar to the real-world near-disaster at the heart of the DART mission: fears of a Texas-sized asteroid,headed straight for Earth.

In the movie, NASA hires a bunch of oil riggers who are badass enough to go into space and blow it to smithereens. So when reports emerged in 2017 that NASA was planning a mission that seemed remarkably like the one in Armageddon, it felt very much like life was imitating art.

The DART team got so tired of the Armageddon comparisons, in fact, that one of them issued a statement dispelling the mythology, noting that the test is actually of kinetic impactor technology, which is nerdspeak for the small spaceship that NASA is going to fly into the space rock to move it off course.

The idea of a kinetic impactor is definitely not like [the movie] Armageddon, where you go up at the last hour and you know, save the Earth, Nancy Chabot, Johns Hopkins planetary scientist and DART team member, said in 2019. This is something that you would do five, 10, 15, 20 years in advance gently nudge the asteroid so it just sails merrily on its way and doesnt impact the Earth.

But NASA apparently didnt get that memo when deciding to invite Willis who may or may not hate the film to the launch tonight.

More on Armageddons: Scientists Say Ecological Armageddon is Imminent Due to Massive Insect Deaths

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Bruce Willis Apparently Refused to Watch NASA Launch Asteroid-Smashing Rocket - Futurism

Imagine, if you will, that future humans manage to travel to other worlds and find more humans.

According to one University of Cambridge astrobiologist, that scenario may be more likely than youd think.

In anew interview with the BBCsScience Focus magazine, an evolutionary palaeobiologist at the institutions Department of Earth Sciences named Simon Conway Morris declared that researchers can say with reasonable confidence that human-like evolution has occurred in other locations around the universe.

The core of Morris belief comes from the theory of convergent evolution, which claims that, asScience Focus put it, random effects eventually average out so that evolution converges, tending to produce similar organisms in any given environment. The magazine used the examples of flight, which has evolved independently on Earth at least four times in birds, bats, insects and pterosaurs.

In short, convergent evolution theory posits that evolution itself is a law of nature and, as a logical endpoint, its likely that evolution would operate the same way on different planets as it does here on Earth.In other words, its theoretically possible that the blue and green alien humanoids you see on Star Trek could be, well, actually out there.

Morris isnt the only Cambridge man who believes alien life would have evolved in ways analogous to a human.

Arik Kershenbaum, a zoologist at the rarified British institution, wrote a whole book about the concept of alien evolution.

Because evolution is the explanatory mechanism for life everywhere, Kershenbaum told Quanta magazine earlier this year, then the principles that we uncover on Earth should be applicable in the rest of the universe.

Kershenbaum argued that while its tempting to envision alien races who dont have the same cultural interests humans have, such as philosophy and literature, we have to remember that they didnt just spring up out of a vacuum as advanced technological beings. Even alien lifeforms with greater technology than humans, Kershenbaum said, would have evolved from a pre-technological species.

If that pre-technological species went on to develop all the things that we have now, chances are that they were built on building blocks that served that social purpose things like bonding between group members, transmission of information and useful ideas between group members, he told Quanta. A pre-technological alien civilization could be singing and dancing and telling stories just like pre-technological human civilization did, because it serves the same purpose.

Its compelling to imagine other worlds where humanoid lifeforms,in Kershenbaums wording, are singing and dancing and telling stories just like on Earth. And if the laws of evolution are as strong as Darwinists like Kershenbaum and Morris believe, that ups both our propensity for relating to and communicating with aliens and, unfortunately, for warring with them as well.

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Scientists Say There May Be "Humans" All Over the Universe - Futurism

Researchers and sleep experts are ringing alarm bells about a nascent marketing tactic: injecting advertisements into your dreams.

A trio of researchers at Harvard, MIT and the University of Montreal published an essay on dream hacking in Aeon warning that, according to a recent survey, 77 percentof marketers plan to use dreamtech advertising in the next three years.

Multiple marketing studies are openly testing new ways to alter and drive purchasing behavior through sleep and dream hacking, the team writes. The commercial, for-profit use of dream incubation the presentation of stimuli before or during sleep to affect dream content is rapidly becoming a reality.

Two of the essays authors previously worked on an MIT device designed to communicate with sleeping subjects and even hack their dreams, lending them credibility on the topic.

Of particular concern, they wrote, was an ad campaign by Molson Coorsbefore this years Super Bowl, which promised free beer in exchange for participation in a dream incubation study involving a video with dancing beer cans and talking fish and pop star Zayn Malik. Interesting, the scientists pointed out, Coors used the phrase targeted dream incubation, a term coined by two of the three in a 2020 paper, meaning that advertisers are indeed keeping an eye on academic work on dream hacking.

All three penned an open letter earlier this year that slammed advertisers trying to hack dreams. Forty other scientists signed the document. The writers also argued that the Federal Trade Commission, which regulates advertising in the US, should update rules against subliminal messages in advertising to ban dream hacking.

Its important to act before its too late, the authors say, because while dream incubation has practical uses treating PTSD, for one its only a matter of time before tech companies that make watches, wearables, apps and other technology that monitor our sleep start to sell that data for profit, or use those tools to hack our dreams while we slumber.

Worst of all, you probably wont even remember it.The researchers referenced a study that found mixing bad smells with cigarette smoke while daily smokers slept reduced their smoking the next day but they couldnt remember smelling anything.

All told, its a provocative warning and a call to regulate the tech before it matures.

The Coors dream advertisement was not merely a gimmicky marketing campaign; it was a signal that what was once the stuff of science fiction might quickly become our reality, the researchers wrote in Aeon. We now find ourselves on a very slippery slope. Where we slide to, and at what speed, depends on what actions we choose to take in order to protect our dreams.

More on advertising: After Backlash, Pepsi Says It Never Planned a Space Billboard

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Scientists Warn That Marketers Are Trying to Inject Ads Into Dreams - Futurism

Its craters might reveal evidence of dark matter. Black Hole Holes

A team of researchers say that the Moon is peppered with craters from miniature black holes and they may reveal some breakthrough insights on dark matter.

The scientists, who published a paper of their findings in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, believe that swarms of atom-sized black holes formed shortly after the Big Bang. As these hyper-dense objects traveled throughout the cosmos, they began to spread out and likely arrived to our solar system, where they claim they probably punctured the Moon.

The studys authors add that these mini-black holes likely smashed into other celestial bodies as well, including the Earth. Due to the Moons thin atmosphere, though, it wasnt as well-guarded against collisions as our world.

In principle, theres nothing special about the Moon the only reason we invoke the Moon is because its well studied, Almog Yalinewich, a physicist at the Canadian Institute for Theoretical Astrophysics and co-author of the paper, told CNET. Some of the moons of Neptune and Jupiter, or Mercury, could be good candidates.

The papers authors believe that evidence of these miniature black holes could shed light on dark matter, the elusive stuff that many physicists believe accounts for the majority of matter in the universe.

Some scientists believe that dark matter is made up of black holes formed from density fluctuations in the early universe, according to the paper. As such, if mini-black holes from the beginning of the universe did puncture the Moon, they could have left evidence of dark matter behind and altered the properties of any light matter they came into contact with.

You could look for dust of different quartz phases and silicates that you wouldnt be able to produce [otherwise], Matt Caplan, assistant professor of physics at Illinois State University and co-author of the study, told CNET. Rock smashing into rock doesnt get that hot.

The researchers believe that future manned missions to the Moon, such as NASAs upcoming Artemis program, will hopefully allow them to find and study these craters and finally shed light on the mysterious nature of dark matter.

READ MORE: Black holes slamming into the moon could end the dark matter debate [CNET]

More on black holes: New Paper Claims That Yes, You Could Climb Through a Wormhole to a Distant Galaxy

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Scientists Say Mini-Black Holes May Have Smashed Into the Moon - Futurism

"This is my final warning!"Bank Memes

Last week JPMorgan sued Tesla, arguing the company owed it $162 million.

We have provided Tesla multiple opportunities to fulfill its contractual obligations, so it is unfortunate that they have forced this issue into litigation, read a statement issued by the bank.

And now, Musk is beefing with the bank in the most Musk way imaginable.

If JPM doesnt withdraw their lawsuit, I will give them a one star review on Yelp, Musk told The Wall Street Journal. This is my final warning!

While presumably tongue-in-cheek, making enemies of banks is risky. At the same time, the electric carmaker isnt exactly struggling to find banks to cooperate with, thanks to its record-breaking value of more than $1 trillion.

In other words, Musk may be calling JPMorgans bluff.

The lawsuit is connected to Musks infamous 2018 tweets in which he promised to take Tesla private, claiming to have secured funding for at $420 a share.

JPMorgan was betting on an eventual sale of Tesla, which of course never materialized.

Given Musks remarks to the WSJ, the CEO isnt exactly quaking in his boots. Besides, $162 million is pocket change for someone in Musks position.And hell be represented by Alex Spiro, the attorney who previously helped him wriggle out of a defamation lawsuit after he called a British cave explorer a pedo in 2019.

Tesla is also in a strong position given its sky-high valuations and crushing expectations in Q3 of this year.

Musk may have been playing fast and loose with his comments back in 2018,which earned him a massive lawsuit from the US Securities and Exchange Commission.

But whether JPMorgans lawyers will be able to make a strong enough case remains to be seen.

READ MORE: JPMorgans Jamie Dimon and Teslas Elon Musk Feud Behind the Scenes [The Wall Street Journal]

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Elon Musk Threatens Bank With "One Star Review on Yelp" Unless They Drop Lawsuit - Futurism

The Museo del Novecento has beaten the Pinacoteca di Brera, its larger neighbour 15 minutes walk across Milan, to secure the worlds most important private collection of Futurist art. Valued at 143m, the Mattioli collection features 26 works by artists including Boccioni, Balla, Carr, Depero, Morandi and Modigliani. Together with the Novecentos current body of 35 Futurist pieces, it will form what experts have described as an unrivalled collection dedicated to the artistic movement.

Created by the businessman Gianni Mattioli in the decade following the Second World War, the collection includes landmark works such as a version of Ballas Mercury Passing Before the Sun (1914) and was declared indivisible and unique by the Italian state in 1973. The collection was displayed at the Peggy Guggenheim Museum in Venice from 1997 to 2015 and was recently on show at the State Russian Museum in St Petersburg. In the latest deal announced in September, it will be made available to the city-run Novecento on a free, five-year renewable loan starting next spring.

Italian media presented the news as a bitter blow to the state-run Brera gallery. Palazzo Citterioan 18th-century building acquired by the state in 1972 to house Breras 20th-century workshad long been seen as the natural home for the collection. The newspaper Corriere della Sera speculated as early as 1975 that the Mattioli collection was destined for the building. In 2017, Brera formally announced that the works would be displayed at the Citterio, then due to open the following year.

Il Cavallo Bianco (the white horse, 1919) by the Futurist painter, sculptor and designer Mario Sironi. Photo: Museo del Novecento di Milano.

However, persistent delays have ultimately undermined those plans. After a 23m renovation was completed in 2018 following numerous setbacks, James Bradburne, the Breras director, proposed a number of modifications. Alberto Bonisoli, the culture minister at the time, accepted the proposals, but he was soon replaced following a change of government. Bradburne was forced to resubmit his plans, which were finally approved in January 2021. The Citterio is now scheduled to open next year.

Meanwhile, talks between the Novecento and Giacomo Rossi, the grandson of Mattioli and current owner of the collection, began at the start of this summer, Anna Maria Montaldo, the director of the Museo del Novecento, tells The Art Newspaper. Montaldo consulted Bradburne on the plans, and conversations were cordial and conducted with utter respect, Montaldo says. [Bradburne] assessed the situation with great lucidity. He knew he could not secure the Mattioli collection by the end of his mandate, she adds.

The collection will make the Novecento undoubtedly the most important centre for Futurist art anywhere in the world, Montaldo says. Asked whether the five-year loan may be extended indefinitely, she replied: Milan is the hotbed where Futurist art was forged. Fate will decide the collections future, but the owner is very open to talks.

After a major reorganisation conducted during lockdown, the museum reopened on 1 October. Works from the Mattioli collection will be mixed with those already on display, with gallery space to be reclaimed with further reordering and by placing some works in storage. Scheduled to open in 2026, a newly renovated tower at the museums Palazzo Arengario site will allow for further expansion of the collection.

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How a Milan museum won the battle to show the world's most important private collection of Futurist art - Art Newspaper

SpaceX CEO Elon Musk is extremely keen on getting humanity off this planet.

And thats more important than ever given the fact that humanity is staring down the barrelof climate change, comet strikes, and dropping birth rates not to mention, in his words, good ol nuclear Armageddon.

During an appearanceatthe National Academies joint meeting of the Space Studies Board and Board on Physics and Astronomy, Musk elaborated on his ambitious plans to get a permanent base on Mars established.

Musks concerns are about mitigating the civilizational risks we that we can potentially mitigate and making humanity multiplanetary is chief among the ways we can do that, according to the CEO.

If you wait long enough, you know, Earth will become uninhabitable, Musk mused. So in the long run we are obviously all dead, he added with a chuckle.

The first few trips to Mars may be a bumpy ride, Musk admitted, referring to how the first Atlantic crossings were terrible.

At last years Humans to Mars summit, Musk also said that building a base on Mars will be very hard and dangerous.

Not for the faint of heart, he added at the time. Good chance youll die. And its going to be tough, tough going, but itll be pretty glorious if it works out.

While rocketing off to Mars, the view in our rearview mirrors may not be pretty. In fact, it sounds like Muskis already anticipating the worst for our current planet.

Theres always a risk of a comet taking out a continent, Musk said during this weeks joint meeting, arguing that there were plenty of sort of continent-level extinction events that have occurred in the fossil record that dont get talked about much.

But bigger rockets may allow us to fend off incoming comets or space rockets and one day save billions of people,he said.

Its convenient, of course, that Musk says that the biggest dangers to humanity are ones that his precise business interests can defend against.

Still, the threats to our existence on planet Earth are real. Musk also highlighted carbon emissions in the atmosphere and the melting of the tundra, adding that he is probably less alarmist than most when it comes to the environment.

Musk also reiterated his worry about the decline of global birth rates, an underappreciated risk, with many population rates dropping with no end in sight.

Apart from comets, climate change and dropping birth rates potentially driving our species to extinction, theres always good ol nuclear Armageddon, Musk added. Thats not out of the question.

I dont know what quite that risk is but its not zero, he said.

More on the event: Elon Musk Says First Orbital Starship Launch May Explode

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Elon Musk: We Have to Get to Mars Because of "Nuclear Armageddon" on Earth - Futurism

With the news of Mark Zuckerbergs new pet project to create a fully-digital world, the metaverse is a topic thats getting more buzz than ever. Naturally, your mom or dad might have a few questions about it when it comes time for Thanksgiving. Heck, you might have a few of the same questions yourself.

Well, have no fear: Weve created a handy guide with all the essential talking points you need to get through a conversation with your friends and family about the metaverse.

The metaverse is a term used to describe a complete virtual reality (VR) or augmented reality (AR) world where people use digital avatars to interact with each other.

The term metaverse was first coined in Neal Stephensons 1992 sci-fi novel Snow Crash. However, the concept remained niche until it was broadly popularized in Ernest Clines 2011 Ready Player One. Both stories present the metaverse as a dystopian, escapist tool wielded by the powerful in order to control the masses by putting them into a perpetual state of complacency and distraction but, confusingly, both authors seemed to think that living in the metaverse would be kinda cool.

The concept is in the news once again because back in October, Facebook rebranded itself as Meta and announced sweeping plans to develop a fully-realized metaverse for totally non-evil and nondystopian reasons. In his announcement, CEO Mark Zuckerberg described the metaverse as a massive online platform thatll allow users to create digital avatars, meet and interact with friends, and create AR overlays over existing physical spaces.Oh, and for some reason, nobody has legs.

Many experts are rightfully apprehensive about the project, including Facebooks own VR expert John Carmack, who said recently thathes been actively arguing against every single metaverse effort that the company has put forth for years. While there are a few reasons for the backlash, the most substantive stem from privacy concerns as well as perceptions that the metaverse needs to be a larger, community-led effort rather than centralized by an evil mega-corp (hey, kind of like in Ready Player One!)

Explain to your parents that you want Thanksgiving and Christmas to be held via metaverse from now on, so you can roleplay as your digital fursona avatar or tell em that youd rather be able to mute dad when he goes on one of his libertarian rants again.

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How to Talk to Your Family About the Metaverse - Futurism