Time for Capsules

I’ve always been big on speculative fiction and it seems like a good day to make predictions. To that end, here is a bit about a new project I’m releasing this Fall with an initiative called Here After the Art. Led by Jana Kubatova & Richard Klocke, the project has an experimental approach to blockchain by inviting artists to create new works that are sealed in blockchain-enabled “time capsules”. Here is an article about the project in Zorastro.

I took this project as an invitation to develop Semi-Centennial Ultra, to provide speculative predictions for the next 50 years (although even since finishing this work I feel like a few of these predictions have since become true).

AI is in and through this text, although there are diversions for Victorian hair-weaving and nuclear semiotics.

“The work presents a speculative vision of future art, culture, and technology, where boundaries between mediums, species, and disciplines dissolve in favor of radical new modes of expression. It imagines a world where AI, blockchain, and scientific innovation are intertwined with artistic practices, leading to new forms of creativity that challenge traditional frameworks. Predictions include multimodal legal documents, art stored within molecules, self-organizing bacteria for archival preservation, the rise of a pantheistic system of AI models, programmable environments within human hair, global competitions showcasing lipid-based zeitgeists, and animal participation in sports. The text envisions a future where nonhuman animals, digital scents, and quantum computing reshape human expression, while decentralized, on-chain systems redefine family and cultural connections.”

There are 58 predictions, each in the form of a short video (as below), and a full video with all of them strung together. The videos are from the live capture of text fragments generated with Processing. Used Eleven Labs for voice and Suno for sound.