Book 69

Reviews

Speculations (“The future is _____”)

(Triple Canopy, 2015)

Review by
Angela Jerardi
Speculations (“The future is _____”) is a pletely, there is welcome respite from all was created by Triple Canopy in the con-
small, but thick, pale blue book published this future-oriented anxiety in the form text of expo 1: New York, a summer-long
by the New York-based online experimen- of charmingly funny or offbeat quips and exhibition at MoMA PS1 that aimed to
tal magazine Triple Canopy in 2015. As seems proposals, such as the last entry for Zombies: consider the triumvirate of ecology, eco-
de rigueur in contemporary art circles, it “Oh dear, I don’t know. Vampires dress so nomy and revolution. The project was
is organized as a lexicon, arranged alpha- much better.”2 initially structured through a four-part
betically, with entries on topics as diverse As an encyclopedic constellation of questionnaire offered to a range of par-
as Aging, Canada, Interplanetary Colonization, ideas, Speculations’ organization and layout ticipants, which was meant to encourage a
Utopia and Zombies, among many others. lends itself to particular modes of reading. “first draft” of future-oriented speculation.4
With 73 contributors, the book is a poly- This book is something that you could These speculations then took shape as an
phony of voices. The diversity represented – easily pick up, read one entry, and put impressive array of conversations, lectures
from novelists and contemporary artists, down until the mood strikes again. I sus- and interviews, forming a museum-based
to activists and hackers, to philosophers, pect that it could feel very at home amongst summer school, with the entire archive of
engineers and policy analysts – is laudable, the small stack of reading material – e.g. this program – existing as audio and video
but the constantly changing register and a meta-comic book about comic books, files – freely available on Triple Canopy’s
tone can at times feel jarring. As a collec- Mao’s Little Red Book and an alphabetic- website. It’s not entirely clear, though, how
tive endeavour attempting to condense al register of Catholic saints – that may these lectures and talks, or possibly the ear-
a panoply of ideas into one small book, be sitting by your toilet.3 Either by de- lier questionnaire answers, then transmog-
Speculations would feel both shallow and sign or editorial decision, the book lacks rified into the entries forming this book.
broad. The entries vary widely, and the footnotes; any sources can only be garner- As I am writing this review, I find my-
project itself seems something of a test ed from a substantial bibliography includ- self recalling a lecture by a colleague a
of the potential cohesiveness (or perhaps ed in the book’s end pages. This creates a few years back. At the time – if I remem-
dissension) within a lexicon that draws challenge for the reader: to consider who ber correctly – he was immersed in think-
on its authors’ numerous disciplines, in- is speaking, and on whose behalf. And it ing about how language and image are
terests and backgrounds. Its breadth rang- also seems to heighten the experience of deployed in public space to create nar-
es from hyper-localized and specialized the book’s unevenly authoritative tone, vaci- rative, and in turn, how this creates the
concerns such as an examination of the llating between interesting anecdotes and very terms through which power within
trend within the Mexican music genre insights, to informative introductions to politics can be negotiated. And so, in this
Cumbia Sonidera to use Bin Laden and the specialized knowledge, to material that feels context, he quipped that Karl Rove, a cru-
Taliban as lyrical material; to worrisome closer to conjecture and hearsay. But this cial strategist credited for many important
aphorisms – “our civilization is five days jilting, and at times contradictory, rhythm Republican Party victories over the last
away from starvation;” to doomsday fic- seems perhaps to be precisely the point, decade in the US, was the greatest per-
tional prognostication – “power outages insofar as the editors describe the book formance artist of our time. Of course
rolled across the United States for a year as a tool and finding aid. this was at least partially a provocation,
until the entire North American continent Borne of a public program, described as but at the same time, it was an ingenious
was dark.”1 But lest you get scared off com- a school, Speculations (“The future is _____”) reorientation of disciplinary thought.

Book Review Documentation

 Regardless of discipline, many of us ing and scrutinizing the language we use Angela Jerardi is a freelance curator and writer
currently living in Amsterdam.
spend years developing competency in to speak about the future can also eluci-
a peculiar language and discourse, and date our present, and describe the condi- Endnotes
1 Entries on Agriculture by Ted Nelson (p. 45) and
then it seems frighteningly common to tions under which we attempt to remake Apocalypse by Marie Lorenz (p. 48) in Speculations
sequester this labour into a closed loop the world.”5 (“The Future is _____”), ed. Triple Canopy & Sarah
Resnick (New York: Triple Canopy, 2015).
of competency acquisition, aspiration and And so, here we are, trying to make do
validation. And yet, how we define and de- with the limitations we have, and trying 2 Zombies by John Crowley (p. 309).

ploy language carries real weight. It seems to imagine things we can’t yet fully de- 3 This is an accurate inventory of reading materials
much too normative that such a small sub- scribe. Meanwhile we busy ourselves with available this winter by my friend Aaron’s toilet.

set of the population gives voice to defin- tweeting, ’gramming and Ubering. The 4 Sarah Resnick, “Introduction,” in Speculations (“The
ing future narratives and deciding on what next great idea is always already right Future is _____”), ed. Triple Canopy & Sarah Resnick
(New York: Triple Canopy, 2015), 21.
terms those narratives will function. Per- around the corner. Synthetic eggs? Pack-
haps then the current passion for consid- ages delivered by drones? Instant powder- 5 Ibid., p. 24.

ering the conditions of language and the ed alcohol in handy single-serving packets? 6 Ibid., p. 25.
building of lexicons is not the least bit It might seem deceptively simple to con-
surprising. As editor Sarah Resnick says cern one’s self with the sharing of stories
in her erudite introductory essay, “As a and words – “an index to our ample anx-
format, the lexicon underlines the com- ieties and desires” as Resnick puts it.6 The
mon language that we cannot but use in dark optimist in me hopes very much that
speaking about the future.… But identify- this is just the thing to do.

Linda Rosenkrantz
Talk (New York Review Books,
2015).

Review by
Esmé Hogeveen

During the summer of 1965, Linda Rosen- tionships in the infamous 1960s New York has continued relevance within the inter-
krantz taped conversations between her art world. connected worlds of art and literary crit-
friends, participants in the New York art Given the potential for its risqué con- icism well into the 21st century, the im-
scene, in East Hampton. Transcriptions tent to incite controversy, Rosenkrantz plicit feminist concerns of Talk inevitably
of these oral exchanges comprise the con- initially struggled to find a publisher. Even- come to mind. Indeed, Rosenkrantz fore-
tent of Talk, which is made up entirely tually, when Talk was first published in grounds the female first-person as a posi-
of dialogue and structured much like a play. 1968, it was marketed as a work of fiction tion that involves perpetually anticipating
The chapters – mostly self-contained vign- rather than source material from the au- dispute. There is something remarkable,
ettes with titles like “Marsha and Vincent thor’s own life. Only subsequently – and then, about reading transcriptions of the
on the Beach,” “Emily and Marsha Compare perhaps most explicitly as part of the re- voices of two women, as well as that of a gay
Childhood Traumata” and “Marsha and branding project that accompanied the man, who are speaking their minds with-
Emily Talk About Nathan, Philippe, Andy New York Review Books’ reissuing of Talk in a self-appointed space. Marsha, Emily
Warhol and Nancy Drew” – chronicle this past July – has Rosenkrantz been ex- and Vincent’s questioning of their own and
Marsha, Emily and Vincent’s relationships tolled for using audio recordings and tran- the others’ perspectives, and the translation
with each other, as well as their attitudes scription methods to explore the protean of the resulting moments of tenderness, con-
towards sex, drugs, rock ‘n’ roll and their boundaries of fiction and non-fiction. In flict and introspection into print, provides
attempts at pursuing and derailing exist- acknowledging Rosenkrantz’s role in devel- a refreshing counterpoint to the ongoing
ential contentment by experimenting with oping the chimerical genre of experimen- editing techniques germane to many forms
creative processes and interpersonal rela- tal autobiography, a mode of writing that of contemporary digital media.

cmagazine 129 70 Spring 2016