Utopography 0.1

I participated in the inaugural workshop

Utopography: Imaging, representing and critiquing imagined worlds organised by the Arts and Science Fiction research group, the Department of Things to Come at the Baltic 39, 31-39 High Bridge, Newcastle, NE1 1EW,

 19 - 20th September 2013

Elsewhere is a negative mirror. The traveller recognizes the little that is his, discovering the much he has not had, and will never have.

Italo Calvino

Utopography is a phrase coined by H. G. Wells in 1906 to describe his insistence that the central activity of sociology ought to be ‘the projection and criticism of ideal societies’. Taking our cue from this emphasis on the importance of visualising and critiquing imagined worlds, our workshop includes the creative and critical work of writers, visual practitioners and digital humanists. Utopography is about the interactions of space and temporal narrative, the creation of social dreams and the actual processes of working within and through the urban environment of the present.

Participants include Dr Jill Belli (CUNY), Francis Brady, Amy Butt, Ko-Le Chen (Newcastle), Dr Nathaniel Coleman (Newcastle) Professor Neil Cummings (Chelsea College of Art and Design), Dr Martyn Dade Robinson (Newcastle), Stephanie Dickinson, Professor Brian Greenspan (Carleton), Sophie Hanson, Alan Jones, Tilde Oosthausen, Dr Will Scrimshaw (Edge Hill), Jon Shaw, Dr Dan Smith (Chelsea College of Art and Design), Emily Strange (MMU) and Tom Walker.

Utopography is part of Northumbria/Baltic Artist Fellow Eleanor Wright and Sam Watson’s curated programme Baltic 39 ‘Figure One’.

A moving image document of the presentation is available,

See the subsequent iteration Utopography: Evaluation, Consensus and Location,  related to the  V&A bicentenary which was itself inspired by Self Portrait: Arnolfini.