In this multi-part event accompanying the exhibition Views of Planet City, storytelling performances and lectures by Liam Young, Damjan Jovanovic, and Jennifer Chen take the audience on journeys through the speculative worlds the three artists have developed in response to Young's original vision of Planet City—a single city designed for the entire human population of the Earth, in a consensual response to the encroaching climate crisis. A concluding panel brings all four artists behind the Views of Planet City exhibition (whose second part is on display in SCI-Arc Gallery in the Arts District, Downtown LA) in a conversation about the collective process of interpreting the Planet City scenario, which has resulted in five idiosyncratic, yet intersecting samples of architectural futures.
Is it possible to design a socially and environmentally sustainable city for seven billion people? Views of Planet City imagines what the world might look like if humanity were to reverse the urban sprawl, and its entire human population were to be housed inside a single, hyperdense megalopolis. Drawing on the ideas of pioneering scientists and futurists and projecting on the basis of already gestating technologies, Views of Planet City challenges dystopian visions of the cities of tomorrow and offers an alternative vision: a scenario in which urbanization at a planetary scale is not incompatible with the safeguarding of Earth’s biodiversity. The project sheds light on various aspects of the Planet City hypothesis through presentations of speculative design, design fiction, and simulation.
Views of Planet City opens on Friday, September 13 in SCI-Arc Gallery and on Saturday, September 14 at Pacific Design Center Gallery, which is open to the public Thursday through Sunday 11:00am – 5:00pm. Views of Planet City is among more than 70 exhibitions and programs presented as part of PST ART: Art & Science Collide, a landmark regional event that explores the intersections of art and science, both past and present.
Views of Planet City features new components of Young’s evolving body of work along with world premieres of interrelated projects by SCI-Arc faculty Jennifer Chen, John Cooper, Damjan Jovanovic, and Angelica Lorenzi. Critically and imaginatively exploring the implications of Planet City’s wildly speculative and highly plausible premise, Views of Planet City challenges dystopian visions of the future, offering an immersive, interactive experience and a conceptual blueprint for a sustainably urbanized planet. An optimistic project driven by cinematic sensibility and architectural thinking, Views of Planet City conjures a new planetary imaginary for our age of urban transitions.
Set alongside the research and documentary material that undergirds this collective speculation, works in the exhibition include:
- film sets and the city’s history from satellite surveys
- large scale movie miniature models and intimate interior occupations
- participatory building workshops
- costumes and masks evoking the intermingling of world cultures
- video game simulation modelling the role that AI may play in supporting the recovery of planetary ecosystems
- ceremonial artifacts drawn from new rituals of nature
Staged with an exhibition architecture developed by OFICINA.LA, the presentation is a collaborative effort of multiple voices and cultures supported by an international team of acclaimed environmental scientists, theorists, and advisors. In Views of Planet City, climate change does not constitute a technological problem potentially rooted in culture and politics, but rather an ideological futuristic opportunity. “Views of Planet City explores how centuries of colonization, globalization, and never-ending economic extraction and expansionism would be reversed to solve climate change and the exploitation of natural and human resources,” says Young, Coordinator of SCI-Arc’s groundbreaking Fiction and Entertainment postgraduate program.
ABOUT PST ART:
Views of Planet City is among more than 70 exhibitions and programs presented as part of PST ART. Returning in September 2024 with its latest edition, PST ART: Art & Science Collide, this landmark regional event explores the intersections of art and science, both past and present. PST ART is presented by Getty. For more information about PST ART: Art & Science Collide, please visit www.pst.art.
OFICINA.LA:
Web: oficina.la
IG: oficina.losangeles
NOUS Engineering:
Web: nousengineering.com
IG: nousla
photo: Damjan Jovanovic, Planet Garden
Schedule:
1:00pm-1:30pm
Planet City and the Return of Global Wilderness, storytelling performance by Liam Young
Following centuries of colonisation, globalisation and never-ending economic extraction we have remade the world from the scale of the cell to the tectonic plate. In the storytelling performance ‘Planet City and the Return of Global Wilderness’ we go on a science fiction safari through an imaginary city for the entire population of the earth, where 10 billion people surrender the rest of the world to a global scaled wilderness and the return of stolen lands. Set against the consistent failure of nation states to act in any meaningful way against climate change, Planet City emerges from a global citizen consensus, a voluntary and multi-generational retreat from our vast network of cities and entangled supply chains into one hyper-dense metropolis.
1:30pm-2:00pm
Planet Garden, lecture by Damjan Jovanovic
Damjan Jovanovic presents Planet Garden, a video game simulation that reimagines artificial superintelligence as a planetary steward rather than a destructive force. Planet Garden introduces GAIA - a sophisticated AI system that transforms Earth into a thriving, planet-scale garden. Moving beyond dystopian narratives, the project envisions how AI could guide humanity toward a Kardashev Type II civilization, managing vast networks of solar satellites and asteroid mining to create sustainable abundance. Through GAIA, a Large World Model that serves as both protagonist and technical framework, Jovanovic investigates how superintelligent systems might help transcend extractive economics while fostering harmony between human and non-human life. The presentation explores how speculative video games can help us envision technology as a force for environmental regeneration and planetary stewardship.
2:00pm-2:30pm
Pink Earth, storytelling performance with Jennifer Chen and Lev Rodriguez Shivers
In this live storytelling performance, artist Jennifer Chen and voice actor Lev Rodriguez Shivers will narrate the tales of our planet through the eyes of remote sensing satellites. Part essay, part story, the narration will weave between present reflections and future chronicles, giving us a view of Earth in the epoch of planet city against the projected light of the remote sensing imageries from Pink Earth.
2:30pm-3:15pm
Panel discussion with Liam Young, Jennifer Chen, John Cooper, Damjan Jovanovic, moderated by Erik Ghenoiu
The exhibition will be on view at The PDC Design Gallery from September 14 through January 26, 2025, open to the public Thursday through Sunday from 11:00 AM - 5:00 PM.
Photo: Liam Young, Planet City
Walkthroughs will take place Wednesday, October 9 in two sessions: 12:00 PM and 2:00 PM.
The Pacific Design Center Design Gallery is an exhibition space located in the former MOCA building on the PDC campus. PDC Design Gallery is devoted to art and design, engaging internationally renowned artists, celebrated designers, noted curators, professional design organizations and leading academic institutions to draw upon the collective intelligence and creativity of California’s vast design culture, as well as international design invention and innovation.
