Archäologie der Zukunft

About

Archaeology of the Future

Predictions – as Mark Twain and Nils Bohr already knew – are difficult, especially when they concern the future. A beautifully designed volume by the Collegium Helveticum brings together different perspectives on visions of the future, past and present. The focus is on science and technology and their interactions with different cultural and social time contexts.
The future is a fleeting thing. The closer we get to it, the further it moves away from us, and the present is always on its heels, like Achilles to the tortoise. The anticipatory representation of what has not (yet) been realised thereby relies on the experience of the past, which for its part, however, can never simply be extrapolated.
Images, sentimental associations, empirical facts, probability calculations and logical conclusions determine the construction of plausible futures, which in turn represent our sensitivities in the present. Yesterday’s highly touted scientific-technical forecasts and visions may seem as ridiculous to us today as an old science fiction film. But yesterday’s utopias and scenarios have inscribed themselves in our present and are helping to shape the future. Archaeology of the Future” digs for such effects, feedbacks and projections. (Text © Chronos Verlag)

(“Archaeology of the Future” is a literal programme. A meta-code level interrupts various essays and conversation rounds about today’s utopias. This code consists of 423 words – which also appear on the cover after reaching 27°C, by means of screen-printed thermochromic ink.)

Info

Matthias Michel, Rainer Egloff, Gerd Folkers (eds.)
Archäologie der Zukunft
Edition Collegium Helveticum 3
Hardcover
170 × 240 mm
2007. 424 pages, various illustrations in colour and b/w.
ISBN 978-3-0340-0813-6

Awards

Most Beautiful Swiss Book 2007
Nominated for the Walter Tiemann Award 2008
Nominated for the Swiss Design Prize 2007