Does anything really disappear? This class is grounded in process, and we treat the art object as a mortal body: something that can die, decay, and return transformed. We will cast, copy, break apart, and recombine forms, pushing material and image past their limits. Every iteration gets tracked, recording what survives and what gets left behind. Classic texts by influential writers such as Jean Baudrillard, on simulacra and simulation, and Jacques Derrida, on hauntology, will be examined alongside contemporary insights from writers like Simone Browne, Avery Gordon, N. Katherine Hayles, and Achille Mbembe. We will dive into case studies, including Tupac's posthumous appearance at the 2012 Coachella festival and a conversation with a death row chaplain. The works of artists and designers such as Sondra Perry, Martine Syms, Neri Oxman, Formafantasma, and Harun Farocki will help illuminate questions of reproduction, representation, and reality in the digital age. Adventurous field trips to New York City recycling centers and prototyping facilities will offer other ways to think about endings, reuse, and invention. Workshops in mold making, composting and bioplastics, and select printmaking methods will introduce you to new methods in iterative making. Students from across the university are welcome to work in any medium. No prior experience is required.

Who owns the future? This course examines the politics, power, methods, and aesthetics involved in conceptualizing the future and giving those ideas form in the present. Visions of the future often reflect the hopes, expectations, and conflicts of the current moment, so projecting oneself and one’s community into the future becomes a deeply political act. Students will explore how different models of the future - created by artists, speculative designers, science fiction writers, and governments - can be analyzed, reinterpreted, and hacked. The course explores critical futuring as a site of collective speculation, ecological entanglement, and decolonial possibility. Imagination is framed not as escapism, but as insurgent methodology: a practice of resistance, survival, and world-making. We will engage with concepts such as somatic storytelling, backcasting, mental time travel, and Queer Futurity through the work of writers and theorists including Ruha Benjamin, Octavia Butler, Ted Chiang, Eve Tuck, Donna Haraway, Saidiya Hartman, and José Esteban Muñoz. Artists and collectives studied include Jefferson Pinder, Cannupa Hanska Luger, Ari Melenciano, Hito Steyerl, Futurefarmers, Superflex, Iyapo Repository, Miriam Simun, Nancy Valladares & Hsu Rae, Forensic Architecture, and Reparation Design Lab. Coursework includes weekly readings and viewings, in-class workshops, group research, and three cumulative studio projects. Students will engage in worldbuilding, critical inquiry, and iterative design to create work that acts as a portal to speculative futures.