Actual Size Los Angeles and The Faustus Group are pleased to present Science Fiction & What It Feels Like To (Already) Live In The Future. The Faustus Group is a curatorial corporation/nomadic rec-center founded by artist Sam Davis in 2010. For its first West Coast event, Claire L. Evans, Paul Salveson and Martine Syms will address futurity in presentations on romance, consumer capitalism, and hybridized structures.

 

Theories of accelerating change state that as technology is able to do more and do it ever more efficiently, the periods between these advancements become exponentially smaller. Engines, microprocessors, and software became vastly more efficient every decade and then every year and now every season.

 

Given our broader, global entanglement with these technologies and the ways in which they allow us to materially interface with the world we live in, these patterns of accelerating change become visible in social, political, economic, and emotional spheres. If we are to judge the nature of futurity by its qualities of next-ness, or not-yet-here-ness, or by the accelerated pace of change within these spheres, we are quite literally closer to the future than we've ever been before.

 

Accordingly, this changing relationship with the future has also changed our relationship to speculative, or, so-called "science"-fiction. Living on the precipice of futurity inevitably changes the way we talk about the present. Science-fiction has increasingly become a site of explicit conversation about what it feels like to (already) live in the future.

For the latest presentation by the Faustus Group, the question is: What does it feel like to live in the future?

 

Presentation Schedule:
9:00pm - Emotional Bandwidth Solutions by Claire L. Evans
“Emotional Bandwidth Solutions” is a lecture originally commissioned by the Hirshhorn Museum and Goethe-Institut that explores digital relationships. Claire L. Evans proposes concepts for the quantification and management of the heart online.

 

9:30pm - Future Late Capitalism by Martine Syms
“Future Late Capitalism” is a talk about speculative forms of capital as seen in the films "The Matrix," "Minority Report" and "In Time." Martine Syms uses these Hollywood blockbusters as a starting point to discuss her ongoing research on the market as a site of interactivity.

 

Throughout the evening: "FUNs" by Paul Salveson
For SF&WIFLT(A)LITF, Paul Salveson has created a sculpture involving a Kurzweil rack synthesizer that plays mathematically modulated sound out of a sculpted earpiece.

 

During the month of January, The Faustus Group will hold film screenings selected by the above participants. A limited number of collaborative print editions commemorating the event will be available on opening night. Please contact the gallery for details.

 

Claire L. Evans is a writer and artist working in Los Angeles, California. She is the singer and co-author of the conceptual disco-pop band YACHT, which recently released its fifth album, Shangri-La, on DFA Records. Her blog, Universe, which addresses the synchronies between art, science, technology, and the cultural world, was selected for Open Lab's 2012 anthology of best science writing on the web, and she regularly participates in panels and screenings on the subject of science and culture. She has given presentations at the Kitchen, MoMA PS1, and the Hirshhorn Museum, she has spoken about extraterrestrial life at the Rubin Museum's BRAINWAVE series, and co-authored a book on interdisciplinarity in the arts, NA/SA: New Art Science Affinities.

 

Artist and musician Paul Salveson lives and works in Los Angeles. He grew up in Virginia, studied photography at Bard College, and is currently an MFA candidate at the University of Southern California. His works have been shown at MoMA PS1, Swiss Institute, the Prague Biennale, and Blindspot Magazine. He has recently contributed a project to the online platform, Parallelograms.

 

Martine Syms is a conceptual entrepreneur based in Los Angeles, California who grew up going to punk shows and watching lots of television. Her work focuses on the relationship between commercialism, identity and experience. She helps institutions, businesses and artists advance culture.

 

Visit the Faustus Group at: http://samdavis.us/projects/faustus-group