What might it feel like to live in New York City after fossil fuels?
Fossil energy, like coal, oil and gas will end eventually. Coal rolling and the renewed celebration of excessive fossil fuel consumption have been merely “petromelancholic” rebound effects…This was the backdrop for Alexander Klose and Chris Woebken’s ongoing research project on the histories and afterlives of petromodernity.
How do we want to live in a post-fossil future? How and with whom will we develop new kinships after the social bonds connected to the resource economy and the exuberant promises of our ‘Western Way of Life’ are untied? Will we actively delve into a world of living materials and microbiological entanglements? Will we get beyond racism and patriarchy? Will we cease to privately own land?
Through narrative techniques and design futures methods a series of bespoke design interventions and immersive installations transformed 1014 into a hyper-reality testing environment. Using guided speculative role play and co-created moments of immersion, participants were encouraged to experiment with new values and beliefs that might emerge in a post-petro world. The scenarios and installations were developed in collaboration with an architecture course at Columbia Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation, led by participatory futures practitioner Chris Woebken in partnership with cultural researcher Alexander Klose.
The idea of precognition: Being neither driven by big corporations nor by governments, the precognition process takes up the project of working with and on futures in an explicitly non-technocratic, experimental way. It avoids statistics-based "scientific" methodologies. Instead, it relies on collectively crafted visions and material-based artifacts and embodied roleplay. An archeology of the fossil presence: surveying infrastructures, collecting images and narratives that at the same time manifest all kinds of afterlives and hint to possible escape routes.
Ayodamola Okunseinde studied Visual Arts and Philosophy at Rutgers University where he earned his B.A. His works range from painting and speculative design to physically interactive works, wearable technology, and explorations of “Reclamation”. He was nominated for the 2021 inaugural Knight Art + Tech Fellowship and is a 2021 fellow of the Graduate Institute for Design, Ethnography & Social Thought. His works exist between physical and digital spaces; across the past, present and future. Okunseinde’s works ask us, via a technological lens, to reimagine notions of race, identity, politics, and culture as we travel through time and space. He holds an M.F.A. in Design and Technology and an M.A. in Anthropology from The New School. He is currently a Ph.D. student in Anthropology at The New School for Social Research and serves as an Assistant Professor of Interaction and Media Design at Parsons School of Design.
Ben Holbrook is a Brooklyn-based (originally from NC) playwright and filmmaker whose works have been produced, developed, or commissioned by: Fundamental Theater Project, Ruddy Productions, The New York International Fringe Festival, The Memphis Fringe Festival, The Motor Company, Voices of the South (TN), Ugly Rhino(LA), Seoul Players (SK), Holiday House, Find the Light (LA), The Irish Arts Council, 45th Street Block Association, and Paper Lantern Theatre Company (NC). His films have been seen at the Big Apple Film Festival, The Imaginarium Convention, The Comedy of Horrors Festival, The Sickest Short Films Festival, and The Films Open Mic Festival. He’s been awarded the Edward Albee Foundation fellowship, the Drama League Rough Draft Residency (partnering with Sam Underwood), Fresh Ground Pepper’s Playground Playgroup Residency, The New Concepts Theatre Lab at UNC-Greensboro, Magic Time at Judson Church, and is the inaugural recipient of the Peter Shaffer Award for Excellence in Playwriting. Ben is also the co-owner of Full Metal Workshop.
Installations by:
Tashania Akemah, Adeline Chum, Ethan Davis, Jules Kleitman, Yingjie Liu, Brianna Love, Gloria Mah, Camille Newton, Aditi Mangesh Shetye, Kaeli Streeter, Carmen Yu.
Film by:
Christoph Girardet
This project is produced in collaboration between:
Alexander Klose is a cultural researcher, Office for Precarious Concepts and Undisciplinary Research, Berlin, Germany and member of the research collective Beauty of Oil, Berlin/Vienna.
Chris Woebken, experimental designer, co-founder of the participatory futures practice the Extrapolation Factory, Adjunct Assistant Prof. at Columbia Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation.
Commissioned by 1014, New York City, Goethe Institute New York City and Popup Goethe Institute Houston.
COVID 19 precautions
In line with CDC guidance and New York City policies, guests need to show proof of full vaccination and wear a mask while being indoors. We will provide hand sanitizer at the entrance of the building.