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See Yourself Design the Future

February 8, 2018 6:00 PM – 8:00 PM

Two special events in conjunction with the exhibition See Yourself E(x)ist

6–6:30 PM, Gallery tour and book signing.

See Yourself E(x)ist curator, Madeline Schwartzman, will lead visitors through the exhibition and sign advance copies of her book See Yourself X: Human Futures Expanded (Black Dog Publishing, London, 2017) to be released in 2018.

6:30 PM, See Yourself Design the Future, five talks, drawing and design jam (room 213 adjacent to the gallery)

How can we use technology to take us to a more ethical and sustainable future? Madeline Schwartzman, curator of See Yourself E(x)ist, and four other prominent artists/thinkers will present design ideas and techniques while the audience is invited to participate in a design-the-future jam. Guest illustrators including Yan Ki Bernice Ho, Joyce Chen, Bianca Criscuolo, Lujain Al-Sehli, and Virginia Munson will be on hand to document the imaginings.

How can we use technology to take us to a more ethical and sustainable future? Madeline Schwartzman, curator of See Yourself E(x)ist, and four other prominent artists/thinkers will present design ideas and techniques while the audience is invited to participate in a design-the-future jam. Guest illustrators including Yan Ki Bernice Ho, Joyce Chen, Bianca Criscuolo, Lujain Al-Sehli, and Virginia Munson will be on hand to document the imaginings.

Participants:

Alan Berliner is an independent filmmaker and artist. Berliner’s uncanny ability to combine experimental cinema, artistic purpose, and popular appeal in compelling film essays has made him one of America’s most acclaimed independent filmmakers. Berliner’s experimental documentary films have been received international acclaim with awards, prizes, and retrospectives at many major international film festivals. All of his films are in the permanent collection of the Museum of Modern Art, among others and he is a recipient of Rockefeller, Guggenheim and Jerome Foundation Fellowships. He’s won three Emmy Awards and received seven Emmy nominations.

Kathryn Fleming is a multidisciplinary designer exploring the intersections of science, art and technology. After working as a product designer in the furniture and footwear industries, she now seeks to explore the narratives humans use to understand other forms of life by drawing on her deep interest in natural history and storytelling. Her biological models and designed interactions aim to question the cultural institutions through which humans interact with animals, and speculate about the future potential of human and animal evolution.

Fiona Raby is Professor of Design and Emerging Technology at Parsons: The New School for Design, and a Fellow at the Graduate Institute for Design, Ethnography & Social Thought (GIDEST) at The New School for Social Research (NSSR). She is experimenting with research and teaching platforms that use design as a catalyst for a form of interdisciplinary imagining that synthesizes social and political thought, world-making, and emerging technology. She is also a partner in the design studio Dunne & Raby. Dunne & Raby’s work has been exhibited at MoMA in New York, the Pompidou Centre in Paris, and the Design Museum in London, and is in several permanent collections including MoMA, the Victoria and Albert Museum, and the Austrian Museum of Applied Arts (MAK).

Madeline Schwartzman, curator, is a New York City writer, filmmaker and architect whose work explores human narratives and the human sensorium through social art, book writing, curating and experimental video making. Her book See Yourself Sensing is a collection of futuristic proposals for the body and the senses. Her most recent book, titled See Yourself X, looks at the future of the human head and its extension into space via technology, fashion, culture and art. Schwartzman is a long-time faculty member at Barnard College and at Parsons: The New School for Design.

Allan Wexler has worked in the fields of architecture, design, and fine art for forty-five years. He is represented by the Ronald Feldman Gallery in New York City and has exhibited, taught, and lectured internationally. Wexler currently teaches at Parsons: The New School for Design, NYC. The subject of Wexler’s work is the built environment. He creates drawings, multimedia objects, images, and installations that alter perceptions of domestic activities. He investigates eating, bathing, sitting, and socializing, and turns these everyday activities into ritual and theater. Wexler is a recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship (2016), is a Fellow of the American Academy in Rome, and a winner of both a Chrysler Award for Design Innovation and the Henry J. Leir Prize from the Jewish Museum. Lars Müller has recently published Absurd Thinking: Between Art and Design, a book on Wexler’s work and creative process.

See Yourself E(x)ist, an exhibition that looks at the future of humans and nature—at our poetic and futile attempts at agency, and our absurd productive efforts to control, continues through February 17. The exhibition and events are free and open to the public. For more information visit www.pratt.edu/exhibitions.

Image Credit: Installation view, See Yourself E(x)ist, photo by Jason Mandella Photography.