Artsemestr / Planet B

Toxic Futures / Final Presentations

 

We only have one planet. However, due to human activity, it has been rendered permanently toxic. The way humans produce energy – no matter how “clean” the source – always leaves traces. Feral relics of nuclear energy, for instance, will metabolize in the soil, water, living organisms or built environment for thousands of years. And as we cannot rely on solid material or political boundaries anymore, we need to accept the situation of complexity, impurity and artificiality as a point of departure for any action.

 

Such has been the premise of the experimental, transdisciplinary project work on Planet B, the Module for Sustainability and Civilizational Issues at UMPRUM, in the winter semester 2022. Four teams composed of designers, architects, artists and theorists have responded to this challenge with scenarios, conversations and compositions that point to the ambiguities of both present and future socio-ecological systems.

 

In part, our projects are speculative. These considerations, however, are just cautious prolongations of observable tendencies. We're not trying to predict the probable or prescribe the preferable – instead, we take seriously what is possible. And sometimes, we just care about shaking up the lines of discourse that often shield us from the unknowns we need to face.

 

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Project Teams

 

TOXIC WATER
Zuzana Budzaková
Ján Cholvadt
Zuzana Řičářová
Viktória Žigmundová

 

ENERGY FORECAST
Daniela Dvornická
Gabriela Palijová
Anna Solianyk

 

TELLURIAN 14
Petr Ehrlich
Veronika Hanáková
Žil Julie Vostalová
Emma Zahradníková

 

LEFTOVER FEAST
Valéria Kršiaková
Darja Lukjanenko
Mike Ma
Mikuláš Procházka

 

More about Planet B here (CZ) and here (EN).