theinstitutefornowfutures

FAQ
Frequently asked questions

How come The Institute for noWfutures?

The INWF is busy with researching and performing collective practices which facilitate the making of time together.
It intends to perform an alternative for the perception and engagement with time in an era in which, we believe, there has been a certain precarization of relations throughout the overwelming process of individualization, the instrumentalization of the present (based on the capitalist myths of growth and progress), the accelaration of the infosephere, the fragmentation of attention through apparatus and interfaces such as smart-phones, facebook and the like.
The INWF subscribes, to the italian philosopher and activist, Bifo Berardi's affirmation of the necessity for reactivating the social body by creating spaces of encounter, for making time together, spaces for vulnerability in which affect, singularity, imagination and empathy can emerge.
The INWF contemplates the performing frame as privileged facilitator for this kinds of encounters, for we belive, playfulness, speculation and fictionality are not only important but necessary in a moment when, for instance, China's goverment issued media guidelines that censor plot lines which contain elements that involve "fantasy, time-travel, random compilations of mythical stories, bizarre plots, absurd techniques, even propagating feudal superstitions, fatalism and reincarnation, ambiguous moral lessons and a lack of positive thinking."

What are the noWfutures?

The noWfutures are forms of contingent temporality in which attention is prompted and spread out on the ongoing liveness of specific situations so the panoplia of heterogeneous and impredictable futures, present right here and now, can emerge and proliferate.
The noWfutures is generated from the subjective intentionality of recognizing both traces and potentials from the futures here and now.
Thus, the noWfutures is located beyond the commonly designated as future and so, in its dwellings only tactics and not strategies can be applied.

-In which context is The Institute for noWfutures implemented?

The Institute for noWfutures is implemented within the frame of the 2012 Iberoamerican y Haity Residency Program promoted by FONCA/Conaculta in México (see also Who: Supporters.)
The project is initiated by Ana Monteiro, one of the choreography grant holders of the program and developed in México City with Juanfran Maldonado, Nuria Fragoso and Magdalena Leite (see also who: people).

Where do the noWfutures practices come from?

The noWfutures practices come from a disquietude and reflection upon the limitations of representation namely in fields of politics and dance and an interest on practical thought, understood as thought that results from the specificity of a process, from the engagement with a particular praxis instead of the representation or reproduction of legitimized knowledge.
Lately, the notion of practice has been used within the field of choreography, as way of challenging knowledge production. Emerging from specific defining parameters, practices engender a know-how which cannot be separated from the particularity of the practice. This particularity arises from the following proposition: there is no idea without a material expression, insofar as there is no knowledge unless it is practiced.
Through engaging in usage-oriented and experience-based practices, a cooperative knowledge production is enacted, in which learning, doing, thinking and affecting interweave.
The practices of the INWF intend to contrapoint the habit of abstract thinking in which many aspects of our ocidental societies rest on. If abstraction comes before doing, before materiality, this points to a projectional way of looking at the future, hence to a strategical way to understand action. Strategy is only possible if there is abstraction, a notion of future as a time yet to come. Therefore, a strategical approach of the future requires both abstraction and projection which depend on the belief on the self-determination of the subject. To the subject is then, attributed the figuring out of forms of determination or strategies that stand between her and the future. This approach singles out the future that then tends to become a linear and univocal form of abstraction.
The INWF subscribes to the understanding that capitalist domination is sustained through the reproduction of mental and bodily settlements which are forms of power control based in dogmas such as growth and progress.
As countraflow to an ideology based on lack and shortage, that boosts consumers drive to go shopping and more recently enhanced throughtout a narrative of austherity and scarcity resultant from the so called debt crisis, the INWF proposes to look at the present as abundant and plentiful of possibilities in and of itself. If the future looses its authority or in another words, looses its abstraction, then it is impossible to keep waiting for an event, revolution or insurrection. Thus, by fully engaging with nowness, by putting attention on the multitute of contingent activities that are ongoing in this very moment, the future is brought into presence, becoming concrete, tangible and multiple.
The practices of the INWF intend to operate in the now so then we can recognise what is emerging from the doings and notice the multiple futures that are already here.
This requires a radical shift in the direction of the opening of spaces for vulnerability understood a the capacity to be affected and to be able to create new unforseen cartographies. We believe that opening to vulnerability has nothing to do with weakness or passivity, on the contrary it allows us to sense the present differently and in so doing, to percieve the potential futures contained in the present. In fact, we consider vulnerability both as capacity and condition to be able to be fully comitted with the actual situation. In this sense, vulnerability becomes a form of resistance, resistance from the outcomes and expectations in which many aspects of our lives have been organized.

Why an institution?

The INWF posits the proposition that we are always already partaking in institutions understood as forms of organization in which shared and repeated behaviour is enacted.
By proposing an institutional format based on the researsh of genuinefictional practices, we are attempting to contribute to the dismateling of the very coordinates of what might be commonly percieved as possible.

What do the noWfutures practices do?

The noWfutures practices enact different modes of shared attention as processes of autonomous and collective subjective creation of time.
The noWfutures practices embrace contingency (as what happens in spite of us) are often contra-intuitive, obscure and engaged in the production of miracles.

-What is The Institute for noWfutures presenta: no es lo que va a pasar, sino lo que vamos hacer?

The Institute for noWfutures presenta: no es lo que va a pasar, sino lo que vamos hacer -The Institute for noWfutures presents: is not what is going to happen but what we'll make out of it- is the first public meeting of the INWF which is hosted by Centro Cultural de Espana in México city on the 9th of November 2012 within the frame of the 5th Iberoamerican and Haity Residencies Showing.
The INWF occupies the CCE from 16h till 21:30 on friday the 9th of November 2012.
The title: no es lo que va a pasar, sino lo que vamos hacer is a quote ascribed to Jorge Luis Borges.

-What if I don't believe in the noWfutures?

The noWfutures are brought into presence from the subjective need and urge to recognize both traces and potentials from the future in the contingency of the here and now.
In this sense, the noWfutures require an individual as well as collective thorough genuinefictional intentionality in order to proliferate.
Nevertheless, the noWfutures also come into existance even if you don't believe in them yet you must believe that others believe in the noWfutures.

Where can I practice?

Wherever: there is no there.
Having stated that, the INWF considers the theater space as a prolific facilitator of the practices for it enhances the performing and genuinefictionalization facets of the institute.

Who can perform the noWfutures practices?

Anyone can be a noWfuturee as long as (s)he engages in a genuinefictional manner in the practices with at least one co-noWfuturee, even if the co-noWfuturee is her/himself.
Nevertheless, a collective practice is highly recommended.

How long are The Institute for noWfutures public meetings?

The Institute for noWfutures considers the activities of the institute including the public meetings are ongoing and thus don't have a specific duration, they prompt the creation of spaces for the making of time together.

What about the logo of INWF?

The INWF logo constitutes the iconographic representation of the Institute.
Like a Rorscharch test inkblot it is evocative and associative, like an advert it contains subliminal messages, like a rock star it longs for recognition and love, like a Kanji it is a visual poem.

What is the relationship between The Institute for noWfutures and choreography?

'The Institute for noWfutures' approaches choreography as expanded practice.
In recent years, the concept of choreography as been challenged and expanded, for instance, by being used to describe the movements in the Iraq war or even the coordination of the trafic lights on the streets which orchestrate our daily movements.
These applications of the term, suggest that choreography can be refered generally to an organization of bodies in motion and in relation within the world.
By bringing into liveness and presence values embeded in society, choreography has the potential not only to render visible power structures, whose ideological impact can be examined but also and foremost, to engage with criticality by attempting to propose new forms of life and organization of bodies comprehending their intelectual, sensorial and affectual capabilities.
The Institute for noWfutures sways graciously yet warily within this overall framework and understanding of choreography driven to express and enact the possibility for autonomous and collective forms of subjectivation.

Are there any therapeutical, religious or spiritual elements to The Institute for noWfutures?

Some of the INWF practices make reference to spiritual, religious, therapeutical or ritualistic sources which have been serving to recondition perceptions and reconciliate the individual with the community.
However, beyond the fact that the INWF does not subscribe to any of those particular belief systems, it draws from them forms of hospitality, conviviality and undertaking which can generate similar affects inspite of it's enactment in secular and genuinefictional settings.
Another important difference resides in the following: while therapeutical and religious practices tend to be anchored on ideas such as melioration of one's condition or notions such as salvation which necessarily point to a certain idea of future, the noWfutures practices are based on the proposition that the now is abundant, containing within itself every possibility. In so doing , the practices of the INWF are not goal or future oriented, in other words, their means coincide with their ends.

In which way are the NWF practices certified?

Disclaimer:
The Institute for noWfutures is not liable for the promotion of any type of creative or productive time.
The INWF can only be held responsible for the creation of spaces for conviviality, idleness and the making of time together.

Is the INWF an institution or a simulacrum?

Both at the exact same time.
The INWF it's a performing relational platform, it operates in the interstitial and ambivalent spaces between stuff which is to say it is highly opportunistic and earnstly interested in the relations of: humans, forms of organization, temporalities, genuinefictions, (in)animate beings, material and speculative worlds and the constant flows, negociations, affects, transformations and mutations which occur within and in between them.

How many practices exist in INWF?

They are in ongoing researsh and practice 7 but there are upcoming ones namely: Smells from the noWfutures, noWfutures for Non-humans and noWfutures Essay-performance.

-Can I practice the NWF practices as discrete or should they be practiced in a specific order?

The noWfutures practices don't adopt linear ordering: you and your co-noWfuturees can practice them in all possible configurations, in reverse or overlapping.

When can I practice the INWF practices?

Solely in the noWfutures.

There will be more Institute for noWfutures public meetings and events?

All the activities facilitated by the INWF are ongoing, this is, they happen in the noWfutures. The Institute is interest in continuing to develop its activities in relation to different contexts and frames.
In adiction, you can follow and engage with them through our website: www.nowfutures.org.