The New Museum’s Spring 2015 R&D (Research and Development) Season is focused on the theme of SPECULATION, considering, among other things, speculation’s volatile relationship to faith and its evocation of diverse possibilities for imagined futures and alternative economies. Gathering together writers and artists who have conducted extensive research on the topic, “Speculative Tense: A Dialogue on Futures” will explore what it means to speculate on the future, approaching the subject from a range of perspectives such as ecological preservation, caregiving, techno-optimism, and market forces.
The panelists will include Sarah Resnick, Senior Editor at Triple Canopy and the co-organizer of Triple Canopy’s program “Speculations (‘The future is ______’)” at MoMA P.S.1 in the summer of 2013; Vyjayanthi Rao, anthropologist, urbanist, and a coeditor of the volume Speculation, Now, copublished by Duke University Press and the Vera List Center for Art and Politics at the New School; and Constantina Zavitsanos, an artist in residence at the New Museum who explores the speculative concepts of planning, contingency, and care in her work.¹