alternative futures

What if art is not just a mirror of the world but a factory for its futures? This project brings artists and writers into dialogue, exploring how each generates knowledge through distinct but complementary methods What if art is not just a mirror of the world but a factory for its future? This project brings artists and writers into dialogue, exploring how both groups generate knowledge through distinct but complementary methods – philosophic fabulation on the one hand, perception and affect on the other. In an age where we are drowning in data yet starved for meaning, alternative futures argues that art is an urgent toolkit for survival: a laboratory of sensation and imagination that equips us to feel, not just forecast, the worlds to come. This conversation asks not how to predict the future, but how to inhabit it – together, creatively, critically, and sensuously. Bernd Herzogenrath is professor of American studies at Goethe University in Frankfurt, Germany. What if art is not just a mirror of the world but a factory for its futures? This project brings artists and writers into dialogue, exploring how each generates knowledge through distinct but complementary methods – philosophic fabulation on the one hand, perception and affect on the other. In an age where we are drowning in data yet starved for meaning, we argue that art is an urgent toolkit for survival: a laboratory of sensation and imagination that equips us to feel, not just forecast, the worlds to come. This conversation asks not how to predict the future, but how to inhabit it – together, creatively, critically, and sensuously.

Pages: 336, Hardcover, Intellect (UK)