"But my mind was too confused to attend to it, so with a kind of madness growing upon me, I flung myself into futurity." H.G Wells, The Time Machine, 1895

"Fully imagined cultural futures were the luxury of another day, one in which 'now' was of some greater duration. For us, things can change so abruptly, so violently, so profoundly, that futures like our grandparents' have insufficient 'now' to stand on. We have no future because our present is too volatile … We have only risk management. The spinning of the given moment's scenarios." William Gibson, Pattern Recognition, 2003

These statements, written more than 100 years apart, provide a snapshot of the condition of futurity which transmediale.10 will analyse. Taking 2010 as a point in time synonymous with past notions of the future in art, fiction, design, architecture and theory, FUTURITY NOW! suggests that this is the year global society will leave behind speculative models of utopia and dystopia and enter into an age far more complex and in serious need of new frames of reference.

The future is not what it used to be.

A hundred years ago, The Futurist Manifesto declared convergence to be the defining factor of the future. Now, as the world emerges from a financial crisis that has finally closed the book on the 20th century, on its totalitarian excess and oppositional politics, FUTURITY NOW! investigates the notion that humanity has converged with its own future.

Forty years after Alvin Toffler coined the word ‘Futureshock’ to describe the condition of being overwhelmed by “too much change in too short a period of time”, we are again faced with the consequences of technological accelerations, through the ubiquity of network communities, the pervasiveness of social and lifestyle technologies, and the politicisation of the world wide web. In this swiftly evolving context, does the future need redesigning or re-imagining? What role does speculation and prediction playing in shaping our notion of self, in shaping the way society progresses? Can we usefully reappropriate time? Are futures indeed necessary at all? What use are concepts such as atemporality, simultaneity, dislocation, and futureproofing?

At the heart of FUTURITY NOW! is change and the intricate affinity that visionary futures hold with both politics and crisis. transmediale.10 will examine the identity of the future and its relationship with the past and the present, engaging international reknown scientists, visionaries, hacktivists, artists, philosophers, and writers to uncover the invisible influence futurity has on our everyday lives and thinking.

FUTURITY NOW! began as a discussion around cacophonic systems and volatility in the wake of the meltdown of global financial systems – the world’s first digital storm. The mythical future-laden year of Arthur C. Clarke’s 2010 loomed seemingly unattainable, as distant as the sci-fi fantasy it was penned to be. In the accelerated hype of media multiplicators, collaboration statistics and networked friends creating invisible communities it seemed that what we used to think of being the future suddenly became passé! The paths of technological progress, the ‘truth systems’ that mark our digital culture could no longer be set on autopilot, and that the conditions for another form of future needed to be laid out. FUTURITY NOW! is not about what will come, but how we have to re-consider our past futures. The future has caught up with us, and now it is our task to define it ... transmediale acts as a connection machine for this debate, inviting artists, writers, researchers, critics and activists to Berlin’s House of World Cultures. Without the generous support of the German Federal Cultural Foundation, and agencies including the Medienboard Berlin-Brandenburg, the Federal Agency for Civic Education, as well as local partners including the Collegium Hungaricum Berlin, serve-u, the Marshall McLuhan Salon and the _Vilém_Flusser_Archive this unique meeting joining the arts, sciences and industry wouldn’t be the leading global event it has become. As a challenge in the realisation of creative ideals transmediale is an intense team effort to which we welcome all our guests and participants!

Welcome – and launch yourself into Futurity… Now!

Begin your festival with a special opening event featuring a rare laudatio by celebrated computer arts pioneer, Herbert W. Franke, an extraordinary carillon performance by Charlemagne Palestine, and the ‘switch-on’ of Yvette Mattern’s spectacular laser installation From One To Many. The opening of the exhibition Future Obscura curated by Honor Harger and AV sets by aaajiao and Benjamin Laurent Aman kick off transmediale.10’s extensive performance programme including Ryoji Ikeda, artificiel and Feng Mengbo among other great artists. Keynotes by Bruce Sterling, Conrad Wolfram and Richard Barbrook along with the unique Futurity Long Conversation highlight the Future Observatory, transmediale.10’s conference. Phuturama, the Free Culture Incubator, award screenings and projects, salons and workshops all consider new takes on what ^another concept of future could be.

Stephen Kovats

Stephen Kovats Artistic Director, Christine Bernauer, Susanne Bernstein, Magdalena Rothweiler Festival Management, Markus Huber Conference Program Coordinator, Honor Harger Guest Curator, Adam Thomas Assistant Guest Curator & Salon Coordinator, Filippo Gianetta IT Manager & Program Assistant, Ela Kagel, Marcel Schwierin, Gregor Sedlag Program Curators, Sophia Gräfe, Eleanor Jones, Marieke de Roos, Anna Lena Seiser Program Team Interns, Anna-Sophie Springer Editor & Translator, Laleh Torabi Design, Meik Mehlhorn Assistant Design, Sibylle Kerlisch Production, Clemens Lerche Marketing, Beckie Darlington Guest Services, Juliane Schulz Infocounter Coordinator, Sally Below Communications/Press, Sally Below, Antje Materna, Christine Florack, Thomas Deittert Cultural Affairs, serve-u: Phillip Sünderhauf, Andreas Buchholz Technical Directors, Ludmila Demke, Marc Klische Assistants to the Technical Directors 

Website Micz Flor Redaktion und Alltag, einskommanull Sebastian Göbel, Laura Oldenburg; Laleh Torabi Design, Filippo Gianetta Coordinator 

Photography Jonathan Gröger

Video Trailer Tom Freitag, Jan Goldfuß, Martin Wellens

Sound Tetsuya Hori

Streaming serve-u

Advisory Board Alex Adriaansens, Marie Cathleen Haff, Saskia Sassen, Yukiko Shikata

Main funders: Kulturstiftung des Bundes, Kultur Projekte Berlin, HKW

Partners: Medienboard Berlin Brandenburg, Bundeszentrale für politische Bildung, gtz, Auswärtiges Amt, .CHB Collegium Hungaricum Berlin, Embassy of Canada, A Public Affairs Program of the Embassy of the United States, Mondriaan Stichting, Shanghai eARTS, Instituto Cervantes Berlin

Sponsors: serve-u technical support, Allianz Kulturstiftung, Geier-Tronic Videotechnik, Laserfabrik, Netzpiloten, Ferchau Engineering, Oktoberdruck, IMA

Media partners: arte tv, Berliner Fenster, Cargo, DE:BUG, Deutschlandradio Kultur, Digicult, Freshmilk.tv, radioeins, die tageszeitung, Telepolis, unlike.net, Zitty Berlin

Supporters: amino, Bocca di Bacco, Echoo Konferenz Dolmetschen, IN-Berlin, Vertretung der Regierung von Québec in Berlin, Werkleitz - Zentrum für Medienkunst, Goethe Institut Bejing, Goethe Institut Jakarta, Goethe Institut Taipeh, Goethe Institut Kairo, Communauté Française de Belgique, Botschaft des Königreichs der Niederlande, Arts Catalyst, Pro Helvetia, Next