Future Continuous: Present Stream (2021)
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.
Episode 1 of Future Continuous: Present Stream includes interviews with writer, urbanist, and media historian Norman M. Klein, artists Miljohn 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.