Projection shed with Timelines of the Future, shed inspired by the Rolla Market

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Installationshot of the timeline and the film at Spike Island

Selection of stills of 'Wandering through the Future':

Wandering through the Future consists of fragments of 70 film productions from all over the world. Passing all sorts of apocalyptic landscapes and scenarios, the one-hour video leads you through the future from 2008 until 802.701 A.D. in order of appearance.

Wandering through the Future is commissioned by Sharjah Biennial 8
Theme: STILL Life, Art, Ecology and the politics of change
Location: Sharjah, United Arab Emirates
Curated by: Jonathan Watkins, Eva Scharrer, Mohammed Kazem
Period: 4 April - 4 June 2007

Wandering through the Future, film (duration 60 min.), printed timeline, slideshow on LCD billboard.
Concept and production: Marjolijn Dijkman
Editing / Graphic design: Harmen van Eersel, Visual music
Wonders of the World: Flyer, fly-posted thoughout the city

Thanks to: Jonathan Watkins, Maarten Vanden Eynde, Visual music, Willem Vanden Eynde, the whole organisation of the Sharjah Biennial 8

Participating artists Sharjah Biennial 8:
Ignasi Aballi; Lida Abdul; Jennifer Allora & Guillermo Calzadilla; Lara Almarcegui; El Anatsui; Roy Arden; Vladimir Arkhipov; Mireille Astore; Lara Baladi; Noor Al-Bastaki; Taysir Batniji; Marjolijn Dijkman; Bright Ugochukwu Eke; Sophie Elbaz; e-Xplo (Rene Gabri, Heimo Lattner, Erin McGonigle ) with Ayreen Anastas; Touhami Ennadre; Mounir Fatmi; Peter Fend; Franz Gertsch; Abdulnasser Gharem; Simryn Gill; Tue Greenfort; Group Tuesday (Fadi Abdallah, Bilal Khbeiz, Walid Sadek); Graham Gussin; Khaled Hafez; Henrik Håkansson; Anawana Haloba; Ilana Halperin; Mona Hatoum; Susan Hefuna; Uschi Huber; Mohamed Ahmed Ibrahim; Alfredo Jaar; Gulnara Kasmalieva and Muratbek Djumaliev; Marya Kazoun; Amal Kenawy; Leopold Kessler; Suchan Kinoshita; Joachim Koester; Christina Kubisch; Deborah Ligorio; Claudia Losi; Lutz & Guggisberg; Tea Mäkipää; Hassan Meer; Gustav Metzger; MindBomb; Abdul Rahman Al Ma'aini; Maha Mustafa; Jesus Bubu Negron; Jacques Nimki; OMA/ Rem Koolhaas & Reinier de Graaf; Cornelia Parker; Pablo Patrucco; Dan Perjovschi; Dan Peterman; Marjetica Potrc; Michael Rakowitz; Ibrahim Rashid; Noguchi Rika; Budoor Al Riyami; Raeda Saadeh; Abdallah Alsaadi; Huda Saeed Saif; Michael Sailstorfer; Tomas Saraceno; Joe Scanlan; Zineb Sedira; Anas Al-Shaikh; Ranjani Shettar; SOI Project; Samir Srouji; Simon Starling; Gerda Steiner & Jörg Lenzlinger; Rirkrit Tiravanija; Mierle Laderman Ukeles; Sergio Vega; Luca Vitone; Shatha Al-Wadi; Camille Zakharia; Ahmed Mater Al-Ziad.

Wandering through the Future has been exhibited at:

2011
Free Fall, 4th Artisterium, Tbilisi, GE
SURVIVAL KIT3, Latvian Centre for Contemporary art (LCCA), Riga, LV
Mutualisms, Co-Prosperity Sphere (C-PS), Chicago, US
Theatrum Orbis Terrarum (solo), Spike Island, Bristol, UK
SOS Planet, Trongate 103, Glasgow, UK

2010
SOS Planet, Torinover 2010, Torino, IT
Real Talk, curated by Oliver Laric, Seventeen Gallery, London, UK
Wandering through the Future, Glasgow International Festival of Visual Art, Trongate 103, Glasgow, UK
Festart, TR1 Gallery, Tampere, FI
The World in 100 Years... The History of the Future, Ars Electronica Center, Linz, AT

2009
The Uncertainty Principle, MACBA, Barcelona, ES
Back to the Future, Curtas, Vila do Conde, PT
Without Kubrick, screening, Lothringen13 / Laden, München, DE
Futurology, Arnolfini, Bristol, UK
Rethink Kakotopia, Nikolaj Copenhagen Contemporary Art Center, DK

2008
LOCALISMS, Museum de Paviljoens, Almere, NL
Wandering through the Future, The Architecture Foundation, London, UK
Los Angeles Works, Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions, Los Angeles, US
Now JumP, Nam June Paik Museum, Yongin-si, Gyeonggi-do, KR

2007
Wandering through the Future, IKON Gallery, Birmingham, UK
Architecture Film Festival Rotterdam, Cinerama, NL
'Filmische Wahrheiten' Heidelberger Kunstverein, Heidelberg, DE
Sharjah Biennial 8, Still Life, Ecology and the Politics of Change, Sharjah, AE

Wandering through the Future (film)

November 2006. Sharjah. Vast living areas stretch out from the city into the desert to provide a temporary home to many of the migrants who have come to work in the property industry in neighbouring Dubai. Houses and shops have been fitted with air conditioning systems to cool the desert heat and produce artificially tempered habitable zones indoors. Outside, the slow but constant leakage of water from the units provides enough moisture to create unplanned habitats for tiny patches of green. These scattered small oases seem like figments of the imagination, miniature mirages projected onto the barren landscape.

Dubai. A fantasy of the ultimate, hypermodern, global metropolis materializes in the desert. Gigantic, grandiose construction projects tailored to attract affluent foreigners are underway everywhere. Huge billboards, spanning entire blocks, not only hide the building work from view, but also project an imaginary skyline and a corporate vision of a fabulous future onto the city. ‘History Rising’ and ‘Live the Infinity’, the advertising slogans prophesy, using a promotional language that appears to borrow directly from the world of blockbuster science fiction films.
While a future Dubai in the image of this genre is constructed, the strict censorship in Sharjah does not allow such films to be screened.

April 2007. The project Wandering through the Future reinserted such science fiction films into the public sphere from which they are normally banned. Clips from seventy movies were compiled into a sixty minute video, and screened in a shed modeled on the fortunetellers’ tents found in Sharjah souks. The compilation took viewers on a journey through popular cinema’s reservoir of scenarios for the future, ordered chronologically according to the date in which they are set, from 2008 until 802.701 AD.

An accompanying graphic timeline charted how far into the future the various films take us. The timeline made apparent that only very few science fiction films, produced in the optimism of the late 1960s and 70s, project their visions into a very distant future, and imagine a future reality that is desirable. But recent films all present apocalyptic scenarios, set in times that are increasingly near. They envision ecological and biological catastrophes, alien invasions, but most of all technological meltdown.

Shop on the Rolla market with magician

While the billboards that visualize the ambitious horizon of a future Dubai aim to convey faith in boundless economic growth and technological might, they thus actually take their inspiration from a cinematic imagination that already harbours the nightmare of collapse. Using visual references such as the code of the Matrix – which in the 1999 film signified an illusory dream world conjured up by an inhumane system – to promote a property project, seems paradoxical at least. With the same conviction as the real estate public relations machine, the blockbuster taglines announce reverse scenarios: ‘The future could be history’, ‘The biggest disaster in history is about to arrive’, ‘Plan Your Escape’.

The taglines of the 'Timeline of the Future' were also screened on the huge LED screen at the entrance of the main venue of the Biennial

Download Timeline of the Future (English)
Download Timeline of the Future (Arabic)

Download Text by Sabine Hillen ' Wandering through the Future'

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