The Project
The Concept
According to recent inquiries more than half of the people who are living in Germany use astrology or similar devices of forecasting to make decisions concerning their lives. At the same time, every newscast proves the enormous importance our present society attaches to economic and scientific prognoses, and the influence they have on decisions which change our life.
Not only do prognoses anticipate the future – they play a significant role in reassessing, redefining and remodelling the present. Who is credited with the production of prognoses, and how their production is carried out, are crucial social, political and cultural determinants.
Our proposition hence is that we shouldn’t lay our future exclusively in the hands of economy experts and oracles – but rather try to turn prognosis into a more accessible, open cultural practice that includes a reflection of its own complexity and paradoxes.
The Conference
On December 1-2, 2007, an interdisciplinary conference about »Prognoses on Movement(s)« took place at the Berlin Free University’s Centre for Research on Movement.
Researchers from various fields, including cultural studies, philosophy, sociology, neurobiology, literature and media studies, religion studies, theatre, dance and performance studies, discussed the following questions:
- What is the status of prognosis today between an art or technique of forecasting and a science based on statistics? In what sense are prognoses performances, or ways of ‘staging’ knowledge?
- To what extent does a prognosis attempt to know the future – and to what extent is its target an intervention into the present situation, and its manipulation?
- Which political, economic, and social strategies make use of prognoses? How do the resulting dependencies affect our image of ourselves as a community of people who make decisions, both individually and collectively?
- Are there chances to democratize prognosis and its powerful influence on our sense and feeling of time? Can we imagine collective methods of developing and producing prognoses? Can we create new options for a larger number of people to participate in prognostic procedures?
Abstracts and papers to download as PDF
The Congress »Prognoses on Movement(s): 10 Future Scenarios« – Performances and Lectures
On June 5-8, 2008 ten international artists and researchers presented prognoses of a different kind at the HAU theatre in Berlin – ten future scenarios in the form of lectures and performances.
The forecasts of these ten »Wise Guys of Movement« (in analogy to the ›economic prophets‹) each addressed a specific movement – while ›movement‹ took on a variety of meanings: the future of the physical movements, both of the human body and of machines, was at issue as much as transgressions of borders, paths of memory, the thin lines between war and peace, the up and down of financial, spiritual or moral values, the dynamics of collectivity and public space…
Additional events and active participation
Some of the prognoses were produced collectively. There were numerous options of participating in performances, experiments, and workshops.
The Büro für die vollendete Zukunft by artist Hannah Hurtzig was open to everyone who wanted her or his individual prognosis during the »Prognoses on Movement(s)« Congress.
The Archive of the Future
The results of the PoM Conference and of our own research on the subject of prognosis, as well as some interesting stuff from the Web, will be availabe for viewing or download at the Archive of the Future. You can find a constantly growing number of text documents, pictures, videos and links there.
The Forum
Imperative prognoses, like the regular assertions of the ›economic prophets‹, are presented in the media with an astonishing credulity, and received with hardly any substantial critique. Debate is limited to the conclusions to be drawn, but rarely covers the function of those prognoses or the authority of the so-called experts.
Our Forum offers the chance of a critical and open discussion on the phenomenon of prognosis, of commenting the statements and hypotheses proposed by the participants in the Conference or the prognoses of our »Wise Guys of Movement«. At times some of the »Wise Guys« and members of the project team will be available for live online discussion.
