Back to the Futures is an ongoing investigation into the social arrangements that technology companies carry into their visions of tomorrow. Returning to corporate films across three editions, the project asks who is served, who makes decisions, whose needs organise everyday life, and who can refuse the roles offered to them.
Each edition develops a different intervention: recirculating promotional images on VHS, interrupting them with informal commentary, and closely describing their encounters through editing and text. Across changing technologies, the project examines how promises of convenience, connection and care renew familiar expectations about work, family and authority.
EDITION I · 2009
Recirculation
Still: Sun Microsystems, Starfire.
Back to the Futures
Video compilation on VHS Source films: 1987–1998
Corporate visions are compiled onto a Back to the Future VHS tape. Their placement within another cultural object turns promotional futures into material for retrospective comparison.
Produced with Natalie Jeremijenko at NYU’s Environmental Health Clinic, with a nod to her earlier screening programme, The Corporate Imagination.
What becomes visible when a corporate future is encountered as an artefact of the past?
Video compilation with voiceover commentary Source films: 2009–2014
Corporate films meet informal voiceover commentary recorded after a few beers. A personal, fallible voice tests their polished scenarios against ordinary experience.
The friction between the two accounts exposes assumptions about how people work, communicate and live together. Commissioned by Karen Verschooren for Future Fictions at Z33, Hasselt, in 2014.
What happens when the polished scenario meets the inconsistencies of everyday life?
Video, colour and sound · 17:43 · Experimental working edit Source films: 2018–2026
Across eleven corporate films, Edition III examines how technological promises renew existing social arrangements. Original dialogue, sustained encounters and sparse descriptions follow the work of arranging dates, serving meals, managing health and speaking for others. The edit asks viewers to attend to the people doing that work as vividly as the men whose needs so often drive these stories.
How do small acts of assistance allocate service, choice and authority?
Across the editions, commentary moves between the material carrier, the speaking voice and the arrangement of image, sound and text. Each intervention makes certain assumptions visible while introducing its own perspective. The project also asks how an artist’s framing shapes what viewers are able to notice.
What is carried forward?
Someone is served. Someone is made available. Someone is corrected or classified. Someone is reassured. These recurring situations connect the editions, allowing changing technologies to be considered alongside the relationships they preserve.
The edition dates mark when the artworks were made; the source-film dates identify the corporate visions they revisit. Full films, credits and source lists accompany each edition.
Stills and source films
Selected frames from each edition, followed by the complete list of films it draws on. Click a still to view it at a larger size.
A headset at the dining table. AT&T, Connections: AT&T’s Vision of the Future, 1993.Clothing appears beside a full-length digital image. Ameritech, The Electronic Home, c. 1988.Remote conversations occupy a tabletop display. AT&T, Connections: AT&T’s Vision of the Future, 1993.
Films included
Ameritech · c. 1988The Electronic Home
Apple · 1987Knowledge Navigator
Apple · 1988Grey Flannel
Motorola · 19902000 A.D.
Pacific Bell · 1991Concept Video
AT&T · 1993Connections: AT&T’s Vision of the Future
Information overlays the bathroom mirror. Corning, A Day Made of Glass, 2011.A fist bump exchanges information. Intel, CES Keynote / Make It Wearable, 2014.A car interior styled around pink screens and heart symbols. Corning, A Day Made of Glass 2, 2012.
Films included
Samsung · 2009Future Life Style 2015
Microsoft · 2009Productivity Future Vision
Corning · 2011A Day Made of Glass... Made possible by Corning.
Microsoft · 2011Productivity Future Vision
Ericsson · 2011The Social Web of Things
Cisco · 2012Better than being there experiences
Google · 2012Project Glass “One Day...”
Corning · 2012A Day Made of Glass 2 Same Day, Expanded Corning Vision
This edit includes scripted vision films, domestic launch scenarios, family-care and lifestyle advertisements, staged avatar demonstrations and design fiction. The list reflects the current experimental working edit.
