Text by CLOT Magazine
In 2014 Freo Majer incepted Forecast, a program that offers artists and creative thinkers from anywhere in the world the chance to work with accomplished mentors toward bringing their projects to fruition. Forecast sets itself apart by inviting prominent architects, designers, curators, and artists to participate in a mentorship program for individuals from all backgrounds.
Forecast selects six mentors of various disciplines who offer selected participants their expertise in specifying and realising their project ideas for each edition. In response to the COVID-19 crisis, Forecast has decentralised its resources and pushed the Forum from the summer to the fall to enable an extended mentoring period for all eighteen nominees.
The mentors will accompany the projects remotely until 9 to 11 September, when the Forecast Forum takes place as a digital event. Following the forum, each mentor will select one mentee. For the Digital Forecast Forum, Edition 6, architect Tatiana Bilbao; experimental singer and composer Sofia Jernberg; cartoonist Ulli Lust; choreographer Mathilde Monnier; artist Emeka Ogboh; and digital policy expert working at the intersection of technology, geopolitics, economics, and society Francesca Bria are the participating mentors.
Bria’s nominees are an economist and Net activist Walter Palmetshofer, artist and filmmaker Pamela Breda, and theorist and designer Jaya Klara Brekke. Walter Palmetshofer proposes an experimental cooperative model that will allow individuals to share their personal data in a fun, private way, moving away from today’s data-sharing and collection methods created to support monopoly, power structures, and dependency. Next, Pamela Breda proposes a visual and theoretical exploration of the impact of AI interfaces and digital assistants on human rights, focusing on the field of mental healthcare.
Finally, Jaya Klara Brekke suggests investigating the concept’s colonial roots to draw out the full spectrum of meanings for critical scrutiny, with theoretical and visual experimentation around questions such as: are sovereignty and control the right terms for networked futures? And what does it mean to have control over one’s personal data?
The three nominees will show their work at the Forecast Forum from 9 to 11 September 2021. More info here.
