Futurity Report: Counter Histories vol. 1 edited by Eric de Bruyn and Sven Lütticken

Published by Sternberg Press in 2020, 'Futurity Report: Counter Histories vol. 1' is a collection of short essays exploring post-pandemic cultural and artistic perspectives. Edited by Eric de Bruyn and Sven Lütticken, the volume originates from the 'Future Caucus' conference at Van Abbemuseum in Eindhoven, organized by Charles Esche. Contributors include McKenzie Wark, Silvia Maglioni, Achille Mbembe, T. J. Demos, and Ana Teixeira Pinto. The book critiques the neoliberal foreclosure of the future since the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, arguing that both melancholic leftism and triumphant neoliberalism have blocked forward-looking imagination. It examines how contemporary society is trapped in a perpetual present dominated by data, algorithms, and just-in-time production, with art markets also under neoliberal pressure. Wark's opening essay 'Paradoxical Modernismo' proposes queerness as a path to becoming inhuman to preserve humanity. Lütticken's 'Running out of Time' looks at Indigenous Amazonian communities as alternatives to linear capitalist temporality. The book aims to reclaim a notion of futurity after the end of the world.