Post-American World: Toward Planetary Governance

Amplifier presents a three-day symposium offering transformative and practical visions for near-future ecological governance of the world.

The non-governmental organization Amplifier convened the Post-American World: Toward Planetary Governance symposium to invite transformative and practical visions for near-future ecological governance of the world. The discussions offer proposals for tools, technologies, policies, regulations, systems, concepts, and visions that contribute to shaping another form of governance to take the place of the current one.

Post-American World: Toward Planetary Governance was presented August 5–7, 2022 during Summer School: Art, Education & Radical Resistance organized by ABC No Rio-in-Exile at the PS122 Gallery, 150 1st Ave. in Manhattan’s East Village. The event was held in person and streamed live, and will be distributed as audio and video online, and published as a book.

Post-American World: Toward Planetary Governance aims to develop and identify persuasive, popular ideas, images, and terms to define near future governance that

  • functions effectively on both planetary and hyper-local levels
  • is just and equitable (mediating disparate effects, extreme wealth inequality, and exploitation of natural resources while guaranteeing basic needs to which all are entitled for life, happiness, and well-being)
  • is liberatory (enabling self-determination of peoples, communities, and individuals, within the limits of justice)
  • mediates power differences among peoples as well as between people and other species
  • forestalls massive natural extinction event
  • reverses climate and democratic collapse.

POST-AMERICAN WORLD: TOWARD PLANETARY GOVERNANCE—THE EVENT


LOCATION

PS122 Gallery, 150 1ST AVE. (IN PERSON)


SCHEDULE  (PDF)


CONFERENCE NOTES


Friday, August 5, 6 pm (U.S. eastern standard time) 

James Wines, SITE

Is the Human Brain an Evolutionary Failure or Can We Organize Ourselves Better?

 

View this post on Instagram

 

A post shared by Stephen Zacks (@stephenzacks)


Saturday, August 6, 12–1:15 pm (U.S. eastern standard time)

What principles arising from contemporary scientific knowledge, social research, technologies, worldviews, and sources of power form the intellectual basis for a new planetary system? 

Stephen Zacks, Introduction to the World-Building Project: Toward a System of Planetary Governance for the Present

Neva Goodwin, Boston University Global Development Policy Center /Next System Project,  Core Support for the New Economy (Boston/ Maine)


Saturday, August 6, 1:30–2:45 pm (U.S. eastern standard time)

What local and universal characteristics of an alternate world-governing system will effectively perpetuate the ecological health of the world? 

Robert Cody, Amoia Cody Architecture, Green Density Zoning (New York)

Josiah Ucheawaji Godfrey & Charles Chinanu Akpuh, The Challenge of Migration and the Politicization of Desertification on Land and Agrarian Economies in Northern Nigeria (Adeleke University, Ede, Nigeria; Babcock University, Ilishan-Remo, Nigeria) 

Ian Lambert, Ocean Plastics (Detroit)

Peter Fend, Ocean Earth, Replacing Fossil Fuels Now (New York)


Saturday, August 6, 3–4:15 pm (U.S. eastern standard time)

What political subjectivities and forms of self, community, citizenship, and belonging will underlie a new governing system?

Reza Negarestani, The Inhuman and Open Source Self (Los Angeles/ Iran)

Vince Carducci, Proposal for a World-Building Curriculum (Detroit)

Sonja Blum, Altruistic Motivators for Planetary Futures (New York)

Tunde Onikoyi (Regina, Canada), Naturalizing Africa or Destruction? Explicating nature in Tunde Kelani’s Pyrolysis or Paralysis: The Charcoal Story

Yann Meurot, A Study of Paradigms (Montreal)


Saturday, August 6, 4:30–5:45 pm (U.S. eastern standard time)

What incentive structures, policies, regulatory environments, and institutions encourage altruistic behavior to protect common planetary interests and bring about planetary survival and well-being?

Martha Schwartz, landscape architect, Natural Systems of Urban Landscapes for Climate Intervention to Cool the Earth (New York)

Claude Boullevraye de Passillé, Atelier Apsis, Biodesign (Montreal)

Sara Dean, California College of the Arts/ IF/THEN Studio, Tools for a Warming Planet  (Oakland)

Al Ramos, immigration attorney, On Freedom of Movement (New York)


Sunday, August 7, 12–1:15 pm (U.S. eastern standard time)

What existing principles and systems must be preserved and defended, and remain essential to a future form of governance? How to transition from existing system to future? 

David Watson, How Deep is Deep Ecology, Against the Megamachine (Detroit)

in a discussion with Stephen Zacks


Sunday, August 7, 1:30–4 pm (U.S. eastern standard time)

What fictions, art works, disciplinary practices, visualizations, architectures, and environmental designs embody the ideas of such a future system?

Hackett, Madagascar Institute, Surviving the Apocalypse in Style (New York)

Ed Keller & Carla Leitão, Post-Planetary Universal Design (New York/Troy)

Mike Willenborg & Ego Laget, New Path Villages (Detroit)

Part 2

Raphaele Shirley, Reclaiming the Science-Fiction Imaginaire Toward a Positive Non- Dystopian Future (New York/ Callicoon/ Aix en Provence)

Daniel Tucker, miscprojects, Bioregional Solidarity (Philadelphia)


Communique

 

Post-American World Poster designed by Kristabel Wing Lam Chung


About ABC No Rio’s Summer School:

Summer School: Art, Education and Radical Resistance is a collaborative project focusing on the artist’s role as activist; art as a community organizing tool; teaching as the sharing of resistant knowledge, and considerations of what constitutes success and failure. Summer School will examine how support for shared values drives alternative politics and ideas through the arts. ABC No Rio often explores new ways to organize and implement its projects. Summer School will continue this tradition of actively involving participating artists, collectives and other entities in the planning, organization, and installation of exhibitions.

 

About Amplifier’s World-Building Project:

Amplifier has convened a group of artists, designers, architects, cultural theorists, critics, ecologists, and thinkers to imagine a new system of hyper-local and planetary governance that makes use of contemporary technology, social research, scientific knowledge, worldviews, and assumptions. Amplifier’s mission is to employ emerging ideas, media, design, and aesthetic strategies to alter the terms of political debate, influence public policy, reconceive theoretical frameworks, promote proven tools and methods to improve local and global governance, and advance systemic reform and formation of new institutions.

Other Projects

Propositions for a Planetary Layer
World Governing Bodies
Worldbuilding References
Software for Planetary Governance
Screenwriting for a Non-Dystopian Future
Worldbuilding Curriculum
DECLARACIÓN DE DERECHO A LA CIRCULACIÓN DE LOS PUEBLOS INDÍGENAS
Declaration of Right to Movement of Indigenous People
Responding to the Emerging Challenges of Media and Governance
Strategic Planning Process
Activating Callicoon
Amplify! Newburgh
Chance Ecologies
Flint Public Art Project
Free City Festival