Future Perfect: the period of embarrassment
Edited by Dimitris Papanikolaou
Discussion Cycle
National Museum of Contemporary Art and Piraeus 260 Piraeus Street, Hall B

The four discussions will focus on the perplexity caused by the upcoming world, which is presented as future perfect - a future that is both perfect and predetermined. How do contemporary artistic practice, critical discourse in the sciences, movements and civil society respond to this image of a perfect and predetermined future?

The four debates will take place in the context of the Athens Epidaurus 2024 Festival, with the participation of programme artists and distinguished speakers from across the spectrum of the humanities, letters and the arts, curated by Dimitris Papanikolaou, Professor of Modern Greek and Cultural Studies at the University of Oxford.

A future... made...

Our age seems liminal not so much because of uncertainty or fear of rapid change, but because the changes seem to be predetermined, our involvement is minimal and what will have happened in the coming years are images we have already seen. This 'perfect' future is also presented as a future already enacted - a double meaning of the English term 'future perfect'.

In dialogue with the performances of the Athens Epidaurus Festival, the discussion cycle will focus on the perplexity of the world to come and how art, criticism, political participation invent new ways of historical questioning, democratic intervention and movement resistance.

At the festival we seek to discuss the pervasive feeling of unease and to rethink ways of critical intervention and participation. These four debates will follow themes that are posed in different ways in the productions of this year's festival. We will approach the world of the digital age, big data, algorithmic realism and artificial intelligence. We will rethink our relationship with history and the archive, as well as new ways of participating in historical knowledge and historical becoming. We will consider the challenges posed and faced by identity movements. We will reconsider how life and death are currently produced and governed, both at the level of the body and at the level of community and population. Finally, we will revisit the age-old question of "how to live together" with a focus on our relationship with the environment, the formation of community and housing, respect for the concept of citizenship, the need for solidarity and resistance to racism, exclusion and intolerance. These debates do not conceal our perplexity about the future, but seek to rethink it as an open and struggling field and to invent new forms of intervention in it.

Programme of debates

10 June 19:00 - National Museum of Contemporary Art
Archive, history, participation: The grammar of democracy
The return to the archive has become a dynamic and democratic interrogation of historical becoming. History is no longer only the domain of specialists, but is emerging as a space for the coexistence of education and citizenship. What are the challenges of this new 'participatory history'? In an age of proliferation of fake news, what are the dangers?

28 June 19:00 - National Museum of Contemporary Art
Common Wonders: The Poetics of Artificial Intelligence
How is the world changing with new technologies of communication, networks and data management? How much do we know and how do we interact with new technologies of recording, geolocation and surveillance? What is algorithmic reality and how does artistic expression manage it? How much is the concept of the human changing in the age of artificial intelligence?

4 July 19:30 - Piraeus 260 Room B
Body, community, identity: The politics of care
Why is the body and its stewardship once again becoming a field of political contestation, identity expression and historical knowledge? What do biopolitics and necropolitics mean and why are these terms used so often today? What is the meaning of the terms "care" and "solidarity" in the era of intense "population management"?

15 July 19:30 - Piraeus 260 Room B
How to live together: The art of coexistence
Starting from Roland Barth's famous question "Comment vivre ensemble?" and its influence on art and architecture, we will revisit the key elements of this question. What does "together" mean today, when this word is often adopted by intolerant and extreme political platforms? How can we think of a future of coexistence in a world of algorithmic loneliness?

Distinguished speakers and artists from various fields participate, offering multifaceted approaches and answers to the above questions.