Approximations Of Utopia

Approximations of Utopia is a new project by artist Marco Brambilla, presenting a vision of a future world fair reimagined from archival imagery using AI technology. Each architectural algorithmic resurrection represents not only the spirit of that nation and society but also the aspirational dreams and desires from that moment in time. The journey through these dynamic collages of the past leads the viewer to a yet unrealised Expo in the works, unbound from geography or time. This idealized speculation, like any utopia, is an imagined community and society of a future filled with the possibility of a meaningful, peaceful life and civilization.

Approximations of Utopia is divided into different iterations, each presenting a visualcompendium of a theoretical World’s Fair set sometime in the future, visualised by atechnology that has become ubiquitous in our contemporary era: Artificial Intelligence.

The first chapter of Approximations of Utopia will be presented as part of the Midnight Moment digital public art program in Times Square.

This first part of the work focuses on six historic World’s Expositions that embodied the spirit of “Better living through technology” as a utopian vision: New York (1964), Brussels, (1958), Montreal (1967), Osaka (1970), Seville (1992), and Shanghai (2010).

The event coincides with the Queens Museum celebration of the 60th Anniversary of the 1964 World’s Fair that took place in Flushing Meadows-Corona Park in Queens, where the main attraction, the Unisphere, designed by Gilmore D. Clarke and donated by U.S. Steel, was the world’s largest sphere.