Dissident Futures

Dissident Futures

Yerba Buena Center for the Arts (YBCA)

Shane Hope, atomic_kill_threads, 2012. Archival pigment print, 48 x 72 inches. Courtesy of the artist.

October 11, 2013

Dissident Futures
October 18, 2013–February 2, 2014

Yerba Buena Center for the Arts (YBCA)
701 Mission Street
San Francisco, CA 94103

T 415 979 2787

www.ybca.org

Dissident Futures is an investigation into possible alternative futures, particularly those that question or overturn conventional notions of innovation in biological, social, environmental, and technological structures. Either through active engagement with future studies or through intuitive investigation, the artists and designers in Dissident Futures envision a future that expands beyond our conventional expectations. Loosely structured around three thematic strands—the utopian, the speculative, and the pragmatic—the exhibition furthers our understanding of how artists are addressing potentiality and the unknown, from the most desired future to the most feared. The assumption is that the three categories are not hermetic but relational, and that they provide structure to developing works of art that address the future. Basim Magdy’s sequenced slide projection featuring spectral images of the volcanic region of Spain’s Lanzarote island as a possible future memory, David Huffman’s paintings of wandering Afronauts, Melanie Gilligan’s experimental multi-episode science fiction drama where personal needs are inextricably linked to exchange value, and Revital Cohen’s and Tuur Van Balen’s object designs that maximize the movements of individual factory workers, are examples of how this exhibition resets possible ways to approach the future. 

Dissident Futures explores a series of fundamental questions: How do artists imagine and question how power links innovation to the future when considering wide-ranging shifts, from biological expansion to space technology? How can artists’ empathetic approaches to curiosity and doubt contribute to the larger field of future thinking? What do artist’s contribute to envisioning real and speculative futures? 

The exhibition features an international roster of artists working in video and film, photography, painting, installation, sculpture and performance, who engage wide-ranging topics including the occult, science fiction and outer space; afro-futurism; architecture and the environment, technology, the nature of human feeling and language; mapping and atemporality; and post-apocalypse scenarios. 

Participating artists are Neïl Beloufa, Heman Chong and Anthony Marcellini, Peter Coffin, Revital Cohen and Tuur Van Balen, Brody Condon, Future Cities Lab, Melanie Gilligan, Lynn Hershman Leeson, Shane Hope, David Huffman, Paul Laffoley, Basim Magdy, Dan Mills, The Otolith Group, Trevor Paglen, Katie Paterson, Kamau Amu Patton, Connie Samaras, and Cauleen Smith. 

Dissident Futures is curated by Betti-Sue Hertz, YBCA’s director of visual arts. It is accompanied by an exhibition catalogue edited by Betti-Sue Hertz and Ceci Moss, YBCA’s visual arts assistant curator.  

Advertisement
RSVP
RSVP for Dissident Futures
Yerba Buena Center for the Arts (YBCA)
October 11, 2013

Thank you for your RSVP.

Yerba Buena Center for the Arts (YBCA) will be in touch.

Subscribe

e-flux announcements are emailed press releases for art exhibitions from all over the world.

Agenda delivers news from galleries, art spaces, and publications, while Criticism publishes reviews of exhibitions and books.

Architecture announcements cover current architecture and design projects, symposia, exhibitions, and publications from all over the world.

Film announcements are newsletters about screenings, film festivals, and exhibitions of moving image.

Education announces academic employment opportunities, calls for applications, symposia, publications, exhibitions, and educational programs.

Sign up to receive information about events organized by e-flux at e-flux Screening Room, Bar Laika, or elsewhere.

I have read e-flux’s privacy policy and agree that e-flux may send me announcements to the email address entered above and that my data will be processed for this purpose in accordance with e-flux’s privacy policy*

Thank you for your interest in e-flux. Check your inbox to confirm your subscription.