Activities

Speculative Improvisations

11.02.2021

Superstudio – 'Twelve Ideal Cities', 1971

I was invited to be a keynote speaker at the annual Dissertation Conference at the Welsh School of Architecture, on 11 February 2021.

The title of my talk was: Collective Scenarios: Speculative Improvisations for the Anthropocene

The Collective Scenarios project asks, What are the prospects for imagining alternative futures in conditions of planetary unsettlement ? How is it possible to anticipate ways of inhabiting the Anthropocene otherwise? The challenge has been to open up thinking about the scenario mode in the Anthropocene. The talk will summarise the research context of scenarios of climate change. It will examine the potential of rehearsal spaces for climate scenarios that draw on speculative thought and have their roots in theatre and participatory design practices. It will indicate the conceptual and theoretical underpinnings of the mode of scenario making as speculative improvisations. The talk will outline some of the experimental projects where this mode was tested and offer some insights on the potential of collective scenarios as anticipatory infrastructures for uncertain, climate-changed futures.