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.

Photo: Liam Young, Planet City