Found Utopia- A Surrealist Manifesto for a Future City

A Surrealist Manifesto for a Future City

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Foreword Over the last century, we have struggled to build cities that follow the basic rules of beauty, and thus ended up with ugly-looking undesirable urban fabrics.

And the reason for this is that the activity of building is subject to the wishes of many different stakeholders in our society, like the ruthlessly capitalistic business-owners and property developers. a government that is reluctant to take regulatory measures against them, and the general public that is often sterilised and blissfully unaware of this problem. Urban planning is the most important aspect determining the quality of life in a city, and yet remains the least democratized field of human society. Therefore, a future city must take into account this problem and embrace the responsibility of formulating

urban environments that are for people, and culture. Moreover, the romantic idea of going back to a simpler life like our pre-agricultural ancestors has time and again occupied the minds of radical utopianists, but the experiments made in this area have all unfortunately failed, mostly due to the lack of economic resources.

If the demand for a Basic Income for all comes to fruition, we can expect to see a return to these experiments, as a more robust way of reinventing our urban life.

With the coming wave of automation and artificial intelligence, self-healing autonomous systems might run the mundane survival related tasks in our living environments, like food production, building construction etc leaving us free to traverse the massive unexplored planet we live on.

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Found Utopia is a project that talks about what the future may require. Like Found Object art, this project tries to look at existing technology and ideology, and transform it with artistic expression into a relic of the future.

Instead of being bound by technicalities, the exercise freely explores a utopian future that may just be possible, if we manage to ask for it. It is not what the future will look like, but merely a radical departure from the present.

Drift City

represents

the ideal vision of a workless society. It is not a blueprint for the future, nor a prediction. It tries to envision what we may need to ask of the future city, in terms of social goals, physical surroundings, and economic structures. It is a wake up call to the citizen, the architect and the artist of tomorrow.

The city is for wanderers. Also the city itself is a wanderer. It does not stay fixed in one place, but moves around based on the availability of food printers, which are scattered across natural landscapes. Inflatable structures prop up in a new location every few months, amidst otherwise inhospitable environments and giant 3D printers construct the rest of the urban fabric on site.

There is no concept of housing in Drift City, the citizens simply find a place to sleep in one of the Sleep Pods, that also drift around, running on renewable energy.

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ropolis, until one day liber ustenance of a new cit

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e of the modern met ists devote to the s

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monotonous machi committted anarc

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Aimless wandering is the goal of every citizen in Drift City. Ever changing structures all around them create inviting paths across the landscape, that rewrite themselves every so often. The city becomes a dynamic playground. By utilizing the most radical bits of technology of the 21st century, the ideal urban planner creates this city of play, where the child and the adult are believed to have the same intrinsic need, to be surprised, disoriented, lost and amazed. The ideal citizen enjoys the dynamism by actively engaging with the elements of the city fabric.

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NOWORK

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The most important step towards reinvigorating city life would be to create playful and dynamic spaces that allow variation.

George Bernard Shaw famously said, “We do not stop playing because we get old, we get old because we stop playing.� The element of play is crucial to the flourishment of culture, because it facilitates social interactions.

And in a world without work, we would have more time to engage in play provided the environment encourages it. And so it goes in Drift City, where distractions like social media do not exist, and only organic experiences count.

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Social rewards are not based on work in Drift City, but instead on the extent to which one has wandered. Life becomes a chase for constantly changing experiences. In a society with no social anchors like the family or the workplace, architecture steps in to create ways of enhancing social interaction. Moreover, this is seen as the prime purpose of life in this experimental city, as income and productivity become redundant due to the availability of basic income for everyone.

The goal of every struc

purposed for slowly drifting.

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Dynamic Inflatable Structures expanding smart materials

Expansion at 70%

Expansion at 90%

Expansion at 100%

tivity of sleeping is re

cture in Drift City is to Drifts across the landscape during sleep

create disorienting experienc

Autonomous Sleep Pod

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es using motion. The a

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In a workless society, the daily objectives of getting somewhere do not matter, and the focus shifts towards experiencing rather than reaching goals. Vehicular traffic is not only unnecessary in a space like this, but also a hinderance. A walking city is the ideal city. Moreover, traditional grid pattern streets should be replaced by undulating paths for a richer experience. The model of Drift City emulates nature and its inconsistency. All that is functional is done away with, and the unpredictable is welcome. The visible horizon contains all that is haphazard, disorienting and challenging for human nature.

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The real potential in the future of technology is the autonomy it will give machines around us. Self healing systems, and smart devices might finally allow us to move away from the civilized ground of the modern metropolis, and live in the wild. We would explore natural beauty and walk through the intelligent city simultaneously. It is a shame that to find nature today in cities, we must go to the enclosed grounds of the zoo, the park or the aquarium. The city of the future must strive to become truly one with nature, appearing and disappearing beneath the surface of the untamed ground, and above wild waters.

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ial spaces in modern cities

often food-related

are now distributed evenly

The centralized soc 20

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Foodoids Food printers and recyclers Operate underneath the ground

ople gather or just pass by 22

Ambiences constant

mic spaces, where pe

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anging location create inter

tly changing with ch

esting visually dyn

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“Technology is the answer, but what is question?�

The coming automation revolution poses a challenge and we must be ready to embrace the new world it would present to us. Problematically, the most common questions being posed today by urban planners and innovators will become redundant in the coming years. These are questions like how fast can we drive, or can we produce more stuff, or how can the city become more convenient and smart, none of which would matter if the environment continues to degrade, climate continues to change drastically and social life in the city plunges into turmoil. We need to ask better questions, like how can we support a new economic system that includes everyone, unlike capitalism?

How can we build cities without disturbing natural environments?

How can we go back to actually living a more fulfilled life in nature as our prehistoric ancestors did?

These are the political questions that every citizen must become aware of before it is too late.

uture without jobs.

lfillment of a secure f

The most fundamenta

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izen today is to pro

al task of an aware cit

test to towards the f

Found Utopia is book that visually explores the goals of the future city. Like Found Object art, it uses existing technology, or material science to show a glimpse of a radically different urban fabric we might want to see in the future. It is a utopian manifesto for the future architect, and the future citizen.

Found Utopia A Surrealist Manifesto for a Future City Master Thesis 2019- Searching For Utopia

By Aditi Singh