FUTURE_FORECAST

The complex political, economic social, and ecological environment of the Philippines sets the framework for the two works presented in the exhibition. The video Pasig River 2030 — 6 Plus and the playable simulation Future_​Forecast question the complex rela­tion­ship between tech­no­log­i­cal progress, emerging markets, traditional cultures and digital colonialism.

The Pasig River 2030 — 6 Plus video takes us to the Philippines in 2030 on the banks of the Pasig River, which runs through met­ro­pol­i­tan Manila. It tells the story of the col­lab­o­ra­tion between Alihaha, a fictional telecom­mu­ni­ca­tions giant and BOT.coin, a blockchain company, together with the Philippine government. Although declared ​“eco­log­i­cal­ly dead” in the early 2000s due to pollution, the Pasig River in the video has been revitalized thanks to the joint tech­no­log­i­cal initiatives of these private companies and the government. However, many problems remain. These relate to the sur­veil­lance and digital coloni­sa­tion of the river and the city. With humor and irony, Pasig River 2030 — 6 Plus reveals the con­tra­dic­tions between digital strategies and material reality. 

Future_​Forecast is a real-time simulation, a game of collective universe-building and a series of characters. It invites players to measure the paradoxical ecological, geopo­lit­i­cal and socio-cultural con­se­quences of their actions through six missions in 6 different spaces. Inspired by Benjamin H. Bratton’s Stack theory, Future_​Forecast envisions our complex inter­con­nect­ed world as a stack of six inter­con­nect­ed strata: Earth stratum, Cloud stratum, City stratum, Address stratum, Interface stratum, User stratum. By exploring these strata and the cause-and-effect rela­tion­ships of their actions with the various constituent elements of these envi­ron­ments, Future_​Forecast players can act to mitigate the harmful effects linked to the development of digital technology and its infra­struc­tures, such as: toxic gas emissions from data centers, ecological destruction, the prosperity of the dark web and accelerated sur­veil­lance by the Internet of Things.

Curators: Vincent Crapon & Françoise Poos 
Technical Coor­di­na­tion: Thomas Schwab 
Instal­la­tion: Olaf Quantius, Ulrich Okujeni 
Com­mu­ni­ca­tion: Mathilde Nabarette 

Ziyang Wu, Pasig River 2030 – 6 Plus, 2022 
Digital video, colour, sound, 8 min. 30 sec. 
Com­mis­sioned by the UCCA Center for Con­tem­po­rary Art 
Director and screenplay: Ziyang Wu 
Courtesy the artist 
Modelling and animation: Yishan Chen, Jiaqi Liao, Jiatao Li, Tiran Li, Xinyue Wang 
NFT character design: Ziqi Wang, Kexin Mao, Hanxiao Ge 
Music: ​“Cursive Calligraphy” by Dajun Yao 
Trailer music: ​“Art of Silence” by Uniq 

Ziyang Wu + Mark Ramos, Future_​Forecast, 2022 
Interactive online simulation, NFT characters 
Courtesy the artists 
Development: Jiahui Zhao 
NFT character design: Ziqi Wang, Kexin Mao, Hanxiao Ge