How to Inhabit the Future

Posters

15 Aug, 2024

EFA24

2024 is a global super election year – even the EFA arts and culture programme stages an election campaign. Two utopias are competing for YOUR vote!

Two teams of artists, designers, and researchers were invited to advocate for an ideal world situated in a positive future. The results of the process are two utopian visions that are organised in the form of a political party, each heading for an Alpbach election rally.

The parties standing for election:

SPA – Super Progressive Alliance

SPA encourages humanity to a peaceful coexistence with the artificial, rooted in dialogue and mutual trust. Complex tasks require a rational and unbiased approach to decision making – capabilities that only well informed AI systems can provide. For humans, a life of personal freedom and joyful obsolescence lies ahead, as automation will take over more and more of our work SPA offers a healthy and sustainable future in a post-work society.

They take your jobs. Let’s say thank you! (Viktoria Kirner, Florian Puschmann and Aleksandar Todorović)

RHIZOME RULE

RHIZOME RULE’s campaign is by and for our friends and comrades from the air to the land to the sea. They promise to defend the earth as an extension of ourselves, to care for it and give back to it like the mangrove does. Inspired by the sea anemone, they call us to team up. And inspired by ants, they believe in the power of the collective and call us to swarm.

Rhize up! (Zeynep Aksöz Balzar, Tonica Hunter, Jakob Mayr and Kilian Wittmann)

Information on voting in Alpbach:

  • “Inhabit the Future” calls all people in Alpbach to the polls, regardless of their nationality, resident/ticket status, or age.
  • A deep-dive in the campaign teams’ utopias will take place on 26 August at 2 p.m.
  • The polling booth is at Schulhäusl. Ballots can be found next to the ballot box.
  • You may also vote via the EFA app. Access it on your mobile phone and enter “Arts & Culture” and then click on the “VOTE” section to cast your vote.
  • Voting takes place from 17 to 27 August 2024 between 9 a.m. and 7 p.m.
  • Results will be announced at Election Night on 27 August 2024 from 7.30 p.m. at the Loggia (Congress Centrum Alpbach outdoor roof). Students from the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts perform the two utopian positions. In case of bad weather, the election party will take place at Schulhäusl. Do not miss this very special election night party!
  • Only one utopia wins.

About the Project

The speculative election campaign playfully questions the rituals and symbolism of our democratic process. Beforehand, voters are wooed with rallies, speeches and manifestoes, jingles and performances. In the election headquarters, a ballot box stands ready for their vote. Everything comes to a peak at election night when the votes are counted and the result declared. The project reminds us of the enormous potential of elections and democracy: It offers the opportunity to see the democratic process with new eyes, and to reflect on the role of design in it. It reminds us that elections have a creative, speculative core.

Design of election headquarters by Kathrina Duller and Nikolaus Podlaha

A joint project by the European Forum Alpbach and VIENNA DESIGN WEEK

Artistic concept and the full arts and culture programme of EFA24

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