SCREEN x JOAN: Future Continuous

Future Continuous: Present Stream is an online series of episodes featuring contemporary artists and scholars exploring parallel and competing visions of what the future holds for both art and the world it lives in. This series was developed with LAND (Los Angeles Nomadic Division) and partnering organization JOAN Los Angeles. Future Continuous: Present Stream is created by Daniel R. Small and produced by David Matorin.

Focused primarily on artists working with research-based methodologies, Present Stream  activates their inquiries by intermingling speculative works of art with discoveries and analysis from a diverse selection of invited scholars and experts in fields including neurobiology, physics, robotics, and urban history.

Each segment of Present Stream continuously circles back to questions related to the limits, boundaries and pursuits entailed by operating under the umbrella term, “artist.” It seeks to interrogate which definitions of the term still hold true and which appear vestigial in our shifting present. In presenting both hopeful examples of progress and neglected signs of change, Future Continuous: Present Stream will strive to map our real evolving futures.

Episode 1 of Future Continuous: Present Stream includes interviews with writer, urbanist, and media historian Norman M. Klein, artistsMiljohn Ruperto and Candice Lin, and neurobiologist Jason Shepherd. By considering current upheavals through the lens of science fiction such as Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner (1982) and Edward Bellamy’s novel Looking Backward 2000-1887 (1888), the episode’s prologue considers the future of downtown Los Angeles’s Bradbury Building by way of its history. "Viral Memory" then examines speculations around an ancient virus linked to memory in the brain's genetic structure, the sibling relationship between infection and possession, and our estrangement from the intimacy of other species that share our bodies. Video works excerpted in Episode 1 include Ordinal SW/NE (2017) by Miljohn Ruperto and Rini Yun Keagy and Toxic Semiotics (2020) by Candice Lin.

The next episode of Future Continuous: Present Stream titled "Evidence in the Anthropocene" will be released by JOAN and LAND (Los Angeles Nomadic Division) on their websites in early June.

Future Continuous: Present Stream is made possible with support from the Wilhelm Family Foundation and the City of Los Angeles Department of Cultural Affairs.

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