The festival Art and the Future City focuses on understanding how future cities can be imagined, conceptualised as well as performed and practiced. The call for participation - contributions, either in the form of papers, presentations, artistic interventions, performances and/or screenings - is now open until the 15th August. The festival is curated by Peter Van Goethem, who will also share the insights from his own PhD Screening the city: a cinematographic archaeology of the city of Brussels.

The future will be increasingly urban. How these cities look, feel and operate has long been (and is still) a topic of interest and inspiration for many artists, designers, architects,… Through their artistic work and practice, they imagine and depict what the city of tomorrow might look like. Although many of these visions of future cities aren’t yet constructed or remain fictional, they offer challenging perspectives on social, political, economical and ecological issues. They illustrate how a city can become uncontrollable or how it will remain a centre for innovation and freedom. Nowadays, the organization of the urban public space and the urban fabric is already developing more and more towards a field of artistic collaboration between artists, designers, (landscape) architects, policymakers, technologist and urban planners.

The festival Art and the Future City explores what role the artist plays and which vision he/she has in perceiving, shaping and mapping the fabric of the future city? New and alternative forms of urban living are imposing new demands on cities. How can the future city be built and managed, taking these demands into account? How will it function socially, economically and politically?

The festival is aiming to bring together a diverse range of researchers, individual artists and artists’ groups from across all fields to focus on the theoretical and practical challenges facing the city of tomorrow. We welcome an equally diverse range of contributions, either in the form of papers, presentations, artistic interventions, performances and/or screenings.