STORY OF TOMORROW

The Full Story

We have lived through the most tumultuous time, where systems we have long relied upon are laid bare for their inequity and unsustainability. We know that we can do better, we have to do better to survive.

proposal

Mission

Story of Tomorrow is a multimedia immersive experience in public space exploring water, food, energy, relationships, and healthy urban environments to propel us into a more beautiful future. It includes projection mapping and intimate in-ear audio stories telling of the more beautiful world we can build and inhabit. The projections are mapped onto the outdoor public space (buildings, monuments, ground) to appear as part of the environment. The audio includes inspirational music, poetry and stories designed to open participants hearts to change. This project can exist in multiple spaces across the cityscape or morph from one theme/story to another in a single space.

Now is the moment where we all need a shared experience that can inspire us towards the change needed.

Vision

The topics covered fall under and expand upon themes including cities and built environment, adaptation and resilience, nature based solutions and energy transitions. Because the audio stories are built from a combination of music, stories, spoken word and soundscapes, the work will include a diversity of voices, practices and ideas. Story of Tomorrow will be a vessel for knowledge to influence local actions. As a means of engagement beyond the experience on site, Story of Tomorrow will create a platform online for contributions of words, images and ideas that will woven into the ongoing immersive environment, changing it over the course of it's exhibition as if a living and growing organism.

Just imagine...

In the plaza projections of light reflecting off water cover the ground. A sign explains that you can get audio by scanning the QR code or going to a link on your mobile phone. You pop in your headphones and begin listening. As you hear music mixing with the sound of the water and water's edge (birds, waves, water lapping) , the projected water image fills the plaza and begins to climb the walls of the buildings around you.

You notice movement to your side and are surprised to see fish swimming past. As you listen to the accompanying audio you hear the story of residents in the future, deciding to learn to live with the water that is moving into their neighborhood. The choices they made to soften the edges (suddenly you notice the projection further inland is marshland) and the struggles they went through to get to the future they now have.

The coast is now more in connection with the water around, one that welcomes the changing waterways and the life on it's edges. The projection shows bridges across waterways, birds flying overhead and schools of fish and shoals of oysters below. This is the story of tomorrow at the waterfront.

Visual elements - water moving from the edge and across the ground, coastal resilience like dunes and sea grass, seaweed, marsh, sea birds on the walls

Audio elements - story of previous storms and floods, learning to live with the water, embracing the water and immigrant knowledge of transient wetness, possibility of bringing life the coastal spaces through connecting to and with the water, sound effects of near water, wind, birds.

Walking into a public commons, you notice that there is an image of something growing up the columns and walls, a vertical farm emerges. Underfoot the pavement cracks open and plants emerge from below your feet. The sign nearby prompts you to listen to the accompanying audio which mixes music, the sound of the farmer’s market that takes up this space frequently, and the story of a city that came together in the midst of a global food crisis to get better at providing for itself through urban farming techniques.

In this story, we see systems of play, connection and collaboration. It is the image of a city that views itself not as individuals, but a community. The story that you hear is that of cooperative working, cooperative decision making and collective planning for a more resilient, abundant and caring community. People of different ages, backgrounds, abilities and interests are using the surrounding spaces for diverse and collective uses simultaneously. The sounds and stories that you hear are of a city that was first torn apart and then learned to rebuild as a strong, cohesive and caring environment through cooperatives, mutual aid, redistribution of resources and recognition of the value of all residents. This is the story of a city of care and cooperation.

You hear the story of new relationships and the guaranteed jobs program that helped build the farm that started here. It is a story of struggle and triumph which ended in a place of abundance, friendships and resilience. This is a story of breaking up pavement, retaking public space and reconnecting with one another and our food systems.

Visual elements: vertical farms, food plants breaking through the concrete, vines that grow on the ground and up walls

Audio elements: The farmers market, and story of a shift into a farm in place, people joyfully coming together to learn, share, face challenges and grow and share food, sound effects the market, sound of tools, sounds of sharing food, sound of birds and wind through trees or plants.