The future of art in postcultural democracy

Has the future of art fallen irredeemably into the grip of the ‘creative industries’ directed by a consortium of public and private cultural entrepreneurs? Is democracy the natural guardian of artistic independence? Or has the cultural policy agenda of neoliberal democracy solidified into a managerial instrumentalization of art geared to the functions of the market and the state? European Cultural Policies: 2015 provides a model introductory text for a discussion of these vital issues in near future forecast. The authors of the report are independent curators operating from dissident research groups whose aim is to challenge the dominant neoliberal model of cultural enterprise and offer viable alternatives to it. This paper examines the report's diagnosis of a symptomatic cultural predicament and its proposals for future recuperation.     

Human-centred CIM : Informating the design/manufacturing interface

The work design philosophy embodied in the human-centred computer integrated manufacturing (CIM) approach provides a radical alternative to traditional technology-oriented and Taylorist approaches to CIM. In order to extend the work that has been done on redesigning factory production and planning tools and systems, this approach can usefully be enhanced by drawing on research on ‘simultaneous engineering’ and the technical and organizational redesign of the design/manufacturing interface. The vision of the ‘informated’ factory of the future embodied in this human-centred CIM vision provides a much needed challenge to traditional guiding images of the ideal automated factory.     

Euro-visions Technologies of vision in Until the End of the World

Until the End of the World can be seen as a ‘global' film in terms of its production process, theme, narrative structure and universal appeal. The article challenges this universality by demonstrating that the film mobilises distinctive and definitive European perspectives in its attempt to speculate about our global future. The article initially examines the film's imagining of technological development in the near future. The film is particularly preoccupied with the future of ‘technologies of vision', the techno-scientific and artistic ways through which we represent ourselves and the world around us. In Until the End of the World, these ‘technologies of vision' are contrasted to more traditional processes of story-telling. The position that narrative occupies in the film is analysed with particular emphasis on the position and the function ascribed to the narrator. The article locates both the discursive origins of ‘technologies of vision' and the film's critique of them, not in opposing universes, but within the same historical process, sharing a common ‘destiny' and coming from the same (European) view of the world.     

It's only a paper moon

This article considers recent ‘end of history’ and ‘end of nature’ hypotheses in the context of new scientific and socioeconomic paradigms, and seeks a broader understanding of the nature of information society. Through a review of recent work on future socioeconomic and scientific and technological developments, the conservationist view is rejected in favour of ‘wise design and governance of evolution’. Planning and forecasting have a central role in this process.     

Researching the future: method or madness?

This paper examines the methodological issues behind futures studies, questioning whether it is possible to claim a futures study as methodologically ‘sound’, and critiquing how futures methodology fits within the methodological paradigms currently recognised in the research field. The extent to which futures methodology can be considered a paradigm in its own right is also examined as are the assumptive foundations of futures studies. While all the evidence raises many questions as to the form of futures methodology, the lack of clarity does not make a futures study invalid or unreliable, and hence sensemaking from the chaos of futures ‘data’ does ensure that futures studies can be based on method rather than madness.

How does one research the future? The very notion of researching the future is a paradox. The word research lies within the time boundaries of the past and the present so to research the future appears a logical impossibility. Attempts to ground the methodology in any single paradigm or set of constructs proves a fruitless task. Indeed, it becomes apparent that when undertaking research into an area that is something new, in the future, which could constitute a new field of research, fundamentally a new methodology needs to be created. This paper discusses how the development of a futures methodology is an on-going process which cannot be bounded by the limitations of strict rigour, but is nevertheless a rigorously sound approach to carrying out research.

When researching the future, no one method is appropriate in isolation. While quantitative methods such as forecasting, extrapolation and time series may prove useful if there is raw numerical data to work with, a hypothesis cannot be tested and proven as is the case in many quantitative studies. Given the nature of ‘the future’ itself, raw quantitative analysis needs contextualising and interpreting in light of the assumptive future constructs, and the assumptions themselves need examining for ‘assumption drag’ so that underlying trends and wave patterns are accounted for [1].     

Betraying a futurist: The misappropriation of Gandhi''s Ramarajya

Discussing how a political futurist may envision present-tainted ‘realist’ futures, ideology-oriented ‘ambitious’ futures, ethics-inspired ‘ideal’ futures, or other types of futures, this essay describes who an idealist-futurist is. Proving that Mahatma Gandhi is such an idealist-futurist who builds his futurism on the rock of humanistic values by relishing the good and rejecting the bad, emphasizes the futures for the weak, and insists on working for future through futureful means such as truth and non-violence, it is pointed out how Gandhi's futurism has come to be pilfered and betrayed by the brahmanical Hindu right-wing future-thieves in present-day India.     

A post-nationalist South Asia

The ideas of ‘nation’, ‘national security’ and ‘development’ have played havoc with South Asian cultures. The notion of ‘nation state’ has tended to reproduce aspirations of the majority people who are often reconstructed by alien categories and leads to the alienation of minority communities. Virtually all ethnic conflicts in South Asia have their roots in this idea. A more viable and desirable future for South Asia lies in rethinking the model of development and reinventing the notions of state and security.     

Domestic futures and sustainable residential development

Domestic ‘futures’ have been a long time coming. This paper questions the extent to which futuristic ‘vision’ linked to the rhetoric and sentiment of ‘sustainable development’ and the ‘livable city’ inform town and regional planning in England and Canada. Despite official commitment to ‘environmental’ objectives and media interest in ‘ecotech’ residential development, markets institutions and behaviour lag behind what is technically possible. Planning guidance encourages homes with less environmental impact. But this message has not reached most residential consumers. Is lack of mass markets in low impact housing a flaw in Government regulation, evidence of the cynical nature of official rhetoric, or proof of gradual product development as society redefines what is expected of living spaces? Or is it unwise to expect too much change in attitudes to property, or for innovation to come soon?     

Are artists and engineers inventing the culture of tomorrow?

The human body represents the ultimate entity through which the world is shaped and interpreted. These days, advances in the field of biotechnology redefine the borders between human beings and their environment; contemporary evolutionary patterns coincide with a technology that have developed detached from any cultural discourse. From an artistic point of view, it is unfortunate that there is little possibility to be responsibly involved in the discourse concerning biotechnology and culture. In fact, this matter concerns our society and its various agents. No longer can it remain solely the realm of engineers whose research, while largely ignoring the broader social ramifications of biotechnology, exerts increasing influence on our daily lives.Given this cultural backdrop, it is not surprising that several artists and designers have critically positioned themselves within the fields of biotechnology and genetic engineering; thus in the late 1980s, a new term, Bioart, evolved: shaped by a complex technology and its appropriation by artists, Bioart engages and examines genetic engineering and its impact on the contemporary cultural environment.This article reflects on these developments and questions the possibility of an artistic practice related to synthetic biology. It bases itself on a project realized by a group of students in the fields of media art and genetic engineering from the Bauhaus University Weimar and the University of Heidelberg called Super Cell, presented at the iGEM competition 2010 at MIT. Furthermore, it draws upon and investigates potentialities for a social and cultural involvement of practitioners on an interdisciplinary level.     

Futures India: society, nation-state, civilisation

The future of a phenomenon can only be understood in terms of (a) the conceptual construction one makes of it and (b) the changes in empirical content of that phenomenon. In turn, the empirical reality ought to be discerned in terms of the past-present-future dialectic. Keeping this in view, this paper begins with conceptual clarifications of the terms society, nation-state and civilization and situates India in terms of these notions. It is suggested that India’s future as a society and as a civilisation is durable although some changes in their content are inevitable. But as a ‘nation-state’ India may radically change given the contestations about it. Four competing value-orientations—cultural monism, cultural pluralism, cultural federalism and cultural subalternism—about the contemporary Indian nation-state have been identified. India’s future as a nation-state will depend upon the legitimacy these value orientations achieve in future.     

South Asia: Before and after

Ever since the two-pronged ‘divide and rule’ approach of the British and the ‘two nation’ theory of the communal forces led to the partition of the subcontinent, the elites of South Asian countries have always bifurcated the region's modern history with the independence divider. The contemporary period thus comprises of ‘before 1947’ when the British themselves ruled, and ‘after 1947’ when British ideas rule. Demystifying the all too familiar ‘before and after’ analysis of the elites and their pompous claims of post-independence ‘achievements’, this paper attempts to elude that scheme, exposing the emptiness of such claims. The author exhorts the poor of South Asia to put independence behind them as another major political event in the long history of the region and to press ahead with collective preparations for their common futures.     

Discipline and authority: Some notes on future histories and epistemologies of India

Though the preceding 100 years have been marked by unprecedented bloodshed, it is indisputably clear, as the century draws to a close, that domination will increasingly be exercised through the categories enshrined by modern knowledge systems. Notwithstanding the advent of subaltern studies, feminism, and cultural studies, the Indian academy shows every sign of remaining colonized. The contestation and defiance of formal academic disciplines, which are the principal vehicles through which the hegemony of the Western intellectual apparatus is exercised, is imperative if India is to have a future where its own spirit, culture, and intellectual traditions are not to be compromised. As a prolegomenon to what future histories and epistemologies of India might look like, it is suggested that Indian intellectuals think ‘more of the rest’, and ‘less of the west’, just as they must find a less oppressive West with which they can cohabit.     

《尤利西斯》诗学精神的分层化管窥

乔伊斯不仅是一位敢于创新的小说革命家,还是一位善于构建文论体系的小说理论家,《尤利西斯》的诗学精神研究是一种真正靠近“文本真实”中心的多元化研究,它的理论形态（小说艺术）、批评形态（诗学学理）、实践形态（文学创作）是有机统一、庞杂并蓄的。换言之,对《尤利西斯》小说诗学之谜的无尽探幽和集中诘疑为真正的小说家提供了广博深厚的文学理论背景和高尚恒久的自由艺术精神,用非人格化的诗性语言以超然于世的高姿态对蕴意无穷的人类无意识领域进行了缜密而坦直的索解。     

The future of happiness

Following definitions of ‘happiness’ and ‘social development’, crossnational and temporal happiness trends are analysed to reveal whether reported happiness reflects changes in broader social conditions. The authors question whether an effective measurement of happiness can serve as an indicator of social development. In addition, the role of information in contributing to or maximizing happiness is analysed.     

Q-analysis : A hard language for the soft sciences

The relevant data sets in a ‘soft’ science can be manipulated and analysed using topology, an exercise which also reveals the ‘backcloth’ which limits or modifies such interrelationships. The method is currently being used in many fields: eg industrial relations, medicine, and architecture. An example of a university's committee structure is used to show how the underlying, and often unnoticed, geometry can frustrate the aims of an organisation.     

A CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK FOR CORPORATE RISK DISCLOSURE EMERGING FROM THE AGENDA FOR CORPORATE GOVERNANCE REFORM

During the last decade an implicit conceptual framework for internal control and corporate risk management has arisen from risk management practice and policy within UK companies. An explicit conceptual framework for risk management is now emerging and is expressed in the Turnbull Report. In this paper, we develop a diagrammatic representation for the conceptual framework for internal control, risk management and risk disclosure. We consider the recent practical and policy developments in the disclosure of risk-related information in order to establish the current state of the art of corporate risk disclosure. Thus, we focus only on the disclosure aspect of the conceptual framework for internal control. We use a questionnaire survey to canvas the attitudes of UK institutional investors towards risk disclosure in relation to their portfolio investment decisions. Our empirical findings indicate that institutional investors do not generally favour a regulated environment for corporate risk disclosure or a general statement of business risk. The respondents agree that increased risk disclosure would help them in their portfolio investment decisions. However, for other aspects of the risk disclosure issue they are more neutral in attitude. Further, we found that the variation in the attitudes of institutional investors appears to be associated with the characteristics of the funds they manage as well as with their investment horizons. Further, we find that institutional investors’ perceptions of corporate governance are related to their investment horizons, among other factors.     

Forecasting our environmental future

This series now comes to an appropriate end with the most menacing set of question marks ever raised about the future of the human race. During the past two decades—from the inauguration of the Club of Rome in 1967 to Margaret Thatcher's famous ‘green’ speech to the Royal Society in 1988—an ever growing volume of research has erased the old-time notion that we live out our lives in a steady-state world. As the bad news has spread—environmental pollution, acid rain, the warming of the oceans—a consensus of anxieties has found expression in a global fear for the future. Is there anyone who would gainsay the possibility that, as Mrs Thatcher put it, ‘with all these enormous changes—population, agriculture, use of fossil fuels—concentrated into such a short period of time, we have unwittingly begun a massive experiment with the system of the planet itself’? The scale of these changes and the measure of the dangers they bring—these provide the range of cause and effect in Dr Woodell's reflections on the great harm we have done to the human environment. This is the one occasion when an editor can truly say: Read on for the survival of our species.     

Making rights from what’s left of Darwinism

The legal, political, and social meaning of the work of Charles Darwin has been claimed as resident to conservative and liberal homes alike. Peter Singer's unique admixture of personal liberal politics and what may look to be an extremely conservative philosophy of nature expose some over-simplicity in traditional ‘right’ and ‘left’ categories. In “Recovering the Left from Darwin in the 21st Century”, Steve Fuller provides us with insightful historical and sociological contexts for Singer's challenges. In this article, Kirk Junker takes one aspect of the trajectory ‘the notion of natural rights’ and examines their social construction, linguistic maintenance, and legal ramifications.