As a result of software’s evolution from drab infrastructure into all-pervasive regime, computation is well past the point of modelling reality; it now actively re-engineers physical space to accord with its desiderata. Alsindi calls this spatial and material externalisation of computational logic upon our built environments Golf Futurism.
From desert megacities to post-industrial urban regeneration projects, complex ecosystems and civic spaces are being stripped of their interiority and heterogeneity and flattened into hyper-manicured, privatised enclaves. The rendering engine becomes the ultimate tool of spatial control, dictating synthetic smoothness that treats ecological and social richness as a sub-optimal inconvenience. By short-circuiting democratic oversight, Golf Futurism turns land into a canvas for a new breed of authoritarianism, widening the gulf between human desire and technocratic reality.
This activity is part of the OpenLAB The Mechanics of Truth festival.
Date: Saturday, November 28, 7:30pm.
Place: Nave Una in Matadero Madrid.
Language: English with simultaneous translation in Spanish.
Price: Free, no registration required.
Wassim Alsindi operates at the intersection of intersections, chronicling visions, designs, and externalities of contemporary technologies across context and episteme. Wassim holds a Ph.D. in ultrafast physics, co-founded MIT’s Cryptoeconomic Systems journal, and has performed, lectured, and exhibited in over 30 countries.