The desire to express oneself creatively must be as old as humanity itself. Over thousands of years, humans have explored and experimented, remixed and found new ways of using tools, technology and all sorts of mediums to give meaning and raise questions about the past, present and future.
Think of the inventions that were required to get to the storytelling and archival qualities of [cave paintings](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lascaux9 of our ancestors or the fact that Yves Klein developed and patented a specific shade of blue, and experimented quite controversially) with human bodies as a painting brush in the 1960s. Or recent attempts to collaborate with AI to create entirely new visuals based on existing works through text prompts (again, not without controversy). What other future mediums for creative expression can we see today?
The Future as a medium
Do you like uncertainty? If not, you are not alone! Human brains naturally dislike change and unpredictability. However, learning to embrace uncertainty and rethink it as a feature or resource (rather than a bug or undesired element) can be a powerful capability. This is part of building future literacy, an essential skill of the 21st century, according to Nicklas Larsen, senior advisor at the Copenhagen Institute for Futures Studies. We can use several anticipatory systems and processes to cultivate this important skill, for instance speculative design, crafting experiential futures (Inheritance project exemplifies an embodied and immersive way of thinking about futures) or data dramatisation.
Thinking about futures can help us to learn in times of uncertainty and become better at making informed decisions in the present. In a business context, this uncertainty mindset can help organisations to be more innovative, increase the motivation of their teams and stay ahead of competition. But not only that. The Future can in itself be a medium of creative expression, a canvas for our imagination. For example, a diverse range of organisations such as Google, Nike, NATO and the UN apply “Sci-Fi prototyping”, an approach to create narratives and alternative versions of the impact of emergencing trends and possible developments and evaluate the consequences to their organisational models. This can help to make a complex and abstract version of the future more relatable and understandable, thus taking action towards a desirable future.
A painters exploration in new digital mediums
Emerging technologies often start in small and closed communities (of passionate geeks) but eventually become a part of most people’s everyday reality. With a curiosity in experimenting with new digital mediums, artist Ditte Ejlerskov was looking for a way to explore the constant fight between the hormones oxytocin and adrenaline in our bodies. Fascinated by a sculpture of Uffizi wrestlers that represented this fight for her, she started to combine painting with AI, AR and NFT technologies for her artwork to transmit the feeling of this fight and transfer it from the days of the Renaissance into our current days.
“I set free the digital sculpture, so it is a global public sculpture, owned by everyone.” – Ditte Ejlerskov
These explorations can allow us to critically examine emerging technologies and raise discussions, for example how blockchain technologies might democratise art. Ditte sees a great potential in conceptual digital art as a new way to think about ownership. She made her sculpture publically available, meaning that anyone can own a copy of the sculpture. A break away from old ways of thinking and structures in the (art) world.
“People from all over the world send me pictures where they use the sculpture in their environment – from beaches to skiing resorts. It made me so happy to see that it really travelled the world and became this global, open sculpture.” – Ditte Ejlerskov
Nonlinear media development
The concept of transversal thinking can help to connect dots, see relations between existing and emerging mediums and discover new connections and possibilities to shape something new and unseen. Sometimes we also need to take a step back, look into different disciplines and review “old” technologies, tools, methods and mediums and rethink the new through the old. New innovations are often a new combination of existing ideas and technologies.
Do you remember the overhead projector? Once a natural element in every classroom, it can hardly be found anymore. However, it demonstrates the transition from analog to digital and it actually inspired some of the user interface and functionalities of power-point. Such mediums can inspire us to rethink the new through the old, according to Kristtofer Gansing, professor of Artistic Research and director of the International Center for Knowledge in the Arts.
“There is nothing natural to the progression of media, there is nothing inherent to develop in a linear way but the ways how we interact with media also shape how they develop.” – Kristtofer Gansing
Do you remember back when Pluto was a planet? This title of a past Transmediale festival reminds us that our knowledge and belief systems are constantly challenged and can quickly change. New discoveries lead us to re-evaluate, re-write and re-learn the fundamentals of the world. Over time, we can see new qualities (and flaws) in mediums, art, technology innovations and even planets.
New mediums are needed to react and give a voice to our times. Generations of creatives have ever since searched for and invented new mediums or used unexpected combinations of established and emerging mediums to better express the current reality and how we see and imagine the world.
This seminar was part of the project USB create, a skills development project within the cultural and creative industries, carried out in collaboration between Region Skåne and Media Evolution with co-financing from the European Union and the European Social Fund.
