Triple Canopy is pleased to announce Speculations (“The future is ______”), fifty days of lectures, discussions, and debates about the future, as part of EXPO 1: New York at MoMA PS1. Speculations will take place from May 12 to July 28, in a structure created by artist José León Cerrillo and in an installation designed by artist Adrián Villar Rojas.

We know all the ways the world will end. And yet, we continue. Our action in the present implies an optimism about the future, even if that optimism is skeptical, worried, or dark. For Speculations (“The future is ______”), Triple Canopy is inviting writers, artists, scientists, activists, economists, and technologists to bet on futures they want to see realized and to describe them as clearly as possible, while considering what demands these futures make on the present. The speculations will take the form of daily lectures and debates in Villar Rojas’s installation and discussions within the structure created by Cerrillo.

All Speculations participants will be filling out a standard questionnaire about their future and its demands on the present, for eventual publication. The public is also invited to speculate on the future and reconsider the present by answering the questionnaire, which will be available all summer at MoMA PS1.

Participants include Laurie Anderson, Arjun Appadurai, Jacob Appelbaum, David Auerbach, Ray Brassier, Ted Chiang, Jace Clayton, Adam Cohen, John Crowley, Ruth DeFries, Samuel Delany, Silvia Federici, Peter Frase, Rivka Galchen, Alex Gourevitch, David Graeber, Group Theory, N. Katherine Hayles, Myung Mi Kim, Katie Kitamura, Josh Kline, Benjamin Kunkel, Ajay Kurian, Rachel Kushner, Lynn Hershman Leeson, Marie Lorenz, Danny Marcus, Mary Mattingly, Joseph McElroy, Maureen McHugh, Yates McKee, Mileece, John Miller, Naeem Mohaiemen, Evgeny Morozov, Ted Nelson, Trevor Paglen, Ashwin Parameswaran, Laura Poitras, Fatima Al Qadiri, Srikanth Reddy, Ben Rivers, Kim Stanley Robinson, Carne Ross, Norman Rush, Saskia Sassen, Astra Taylor, Mierle Laderman Ukeles, Ellen Ullman, Kathi Weeks, and Ben Wizner. The full schedule will be announced soon.

Call for Applications
Speculations (“The future is ______”) is a school of sorts, and its success depends on regular attendance by a dedicated student body, who will develop their own speculations about the future over the course of a summer’s worth of discussions. Triple Canopy is looking to enlist a group of fifteen to twenty-five students who can prepare for and attend classes on weekends and Monday, Thursday, and Friday afternoons. You are invited to apply by completing our questionnaire about your speculative future. Applications are due May 5. Students will be given free admission to MoMA PS1 every day Speculations is in session, and the opportunity to revise their questionnaires for inclusion in a book compiling the summer’s speculations. Please email speculations@canopycanopycanopy.com with any questions.

Format
Mondays, Thursdays (except July 4), and Fridays
One speaker will give a two-part presentation, each part an hour long. The first part, a seminar, taking place at 2 p.m., will be a discussion of a historical speculation on the future—a short text or other work that the speaker has found generative. The second part, a talk or lecture, taking place at 4 p.m., will present the speaker’s own speculation on the future, to be followed by a Q&A.

Saturdays (through June 22), Sundays, and Thursday, July 4
Weekend days and July Fourth will have a wider range of formats: debate, conversation, keynote, performance, etc. Generally, sessions will begin at 3 p.m. (times will vary) and last for up to two hours.

About EXPO 1: New York
EXPO 1: New York is a large-scale exploration of ecological challenges in the context of the economic and sociopolitical instability of the early twenty-first century. Acting in the guise of a festival-as-institution, EXPO 1: New York reconsiders the museum from the ground up, presenting a simultaneity of modules, interventions, solo projects, and group exhibitions that encompass all of MoMA PS1 and other locations such as MoMA and Rockaway Beach. EXPO 1: New York is made possible by a partnership with Volkswagen.