THE FUTURE IS NON-HUMAN
Presented as a one-to-one participatory durational performance in public space at Musis & Stadstheater, Arnhem (NL) as part of UitNacht Festival in January ‘25. The first iteration of a project currently in development titled ‘The Future is Co-Existence.’
THE FUTURE IS NON-HUMAN is a piece that investigates the future of humanity by exploring an encounter between humans and non-humans. Influenced by Timothy Morton’s theory of Dark Ecology and Anna Tsing’s The Mushroom at the End of the World: On the Possibility of Life in Capitalist Ruins, audience is invited to participate in action which attempts to explore an act of coexistence.
The audience is guided by a human and the voice of a mushroom who will survive the end of the world, they are asked to question and rethink their visions for the future. Through a new mode of seeing, the participant wears a mask and joins the ‘human’ in attemptying to imagine a future of coexistence, reconnecting with nature and the larger ecosystem in which we exist.
How we can imagine the future in terms of coexistence when we are surrounded by destruction. Throughout the performance a video of destroyed buildings and landscapes plays inspired by the historical destruction caused by war in Arnhem, the audience is invited to listen, watch and think about what coexistence could mean to them. How can we think to the future without solving present problems first? Maybe coexistence is the answer but what does this mean, what does this look like?
Photography by Kristi Gresse
A conversation with a mushroom at the end of the world.
Look at the ground - what do you see? Soil, dirt, destruction?
What do you want to see? Imagine it. Rebirth, renewal, hope?
This is about the end of the world.
What do you think that looks like? How do you imagine the end of the world?
What is the exact moment of the end?
Is it when the planet is destroyed?
How do you define destruction?
The moment when you are destroyed?
Is that when the end begins?
This is where I begin.
A matsutake mushroom and I will be here long after you’ve gone.
I grow and thrive in places of destruction.
Can you?
Can you survive the destruction you cause?
As a mushroom, I am not human but today I have been given a voice.
Though this voice is not human either.
What does the future look like to you?
The future is co-existence.
I am no different from you.
You are no different from me.
What does that look like?
TEAM
Created and performed by:
Dualtagh McDonnell-Grundy