"How Soon is Now?", an exercise to imagine our provisional futures, brought together 10 cultural practitioners from 10 organisations across the so called Western Balkans - or as group rather prefers Untitled region - for a speculative imagination of their context and practices ten years from now, in the year 2018.

With the assumption that all (individuals and organizations) invited have developed over the last decade specific skills and qualities that stretch the possibilities of their present situation, we went into a collective brainstorm where will we be when/if the transition in these societies is over.

From 14-16 July five parallel mobile mini conferences will move from a starting point somewhere in the Western Balkans, to arrive to Skopje for a two days summit on 17-18 July. Investigating the locally emerging concepts and speculating their impact on a wider context, their input will be brought together at this summit. The 'moving conferences' are formed by teams of artists, architects and theoreticians who will be contributing to the Lexicon for the Future. The teams self-organise their trip and stay during their travel, which means they can decide to spiral around, make a de-tour, or stay in one city to make a dense set of meetings (>).

During the summer and autumn 2007 a number of activities and events, following the Lost Highway Expedition of last year, are taking place. Through working sessions in the Western Balkans region, the project’s ‘sourcebook’ is collaboratively created and will be printed in a format of a manuscript. The main part of it is a lexicon of terms and (re)definitions imagining the Western Balkans as a vital and important source for the possible futures of Europe. From 14 – 19 July the second session of making the project’s 'source book' brings together about 25 participants, for a travel and two days summit in Skopje and to cotribute their entries to this 'Lexicon of Provisional Future(s)' (>).

The summit in Skopje will be the place where it all comes together during a two days summit (17-18 July). Concepts are presented and the first lexicon draft is created. The list of travelers and writers include Ivan Kucina, Kristian Cebzan, Dushan Grlja, Bojan Djordjev, Vladimir Jeric, Jelena Vesic, Vahida Ramujkic, Alessandro Floris, Ana Dzokic, Marc Neelen, Piet Vollaard, Peter Lang, Giulia Fiocca, Laia Sole, Alenka Gregoric, Amy Fanek, Yane Calovski, Hristina Ivanoska, Filip Jovanovski, Kasper Akhoj, Igor Isakovski, Oliver Musovik, and others.

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Day one – TUESDAY, 17 July, 2007
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11:00 Welcome and introduction of the agenda (Yane, Ana, Marc)

Location: Kursumli An (the Lead Caravanserai) - Contemporary Arts Centre

From 14-16 July five parallel mobile mini conferences will move from a starting point somewhere in the Western Balkans, to arrive to Skopje for a two days summit where their output will be brought together. The 'moving conferences' are formed by teams of artists, architects and theoreticians who will be contributing to the Lexicon for the Future. The teams self-organise their trip and stay during their travel, which means they can decide to spiral around, make a de-tour, or stay in one city to make a dense set of meetings. Each team will, during this travel, assemble minimum 5 entries to the lexicon (each 350 words) - all while on the road.

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The first session will be joined by Azra Aksamija (Boston/Sarajevo), Ivan Kucina (Belgrade), Srdjan Jovanovic Weiss (Basel/New York), Katherine Carl (Basel/New York), Ana Dzokic (Rotterdam/Belgrade) and Marc Neelen (Rotterdam) from the initial group, Yane Calovski (Skopje), Barbara Galassi (Belgrade/Rome), Vahida Ramujkic (Barcelona/Belgrade), Jaume Nualart (Barcelona/Vienna), and a group of LHE participants residing in Rotterdam and Amsterdam, Arnoud Schuurman, Hugo Lammernik, Wietske Maas, Auke Touwslager, Ursula Lavrencic and Emiliano Gandolfi, curator at The Netherlands Architecture Institute, Rotterdam. The session will take place in the Harbour #1350, Maashaven in Rotterdam, studio space of Stealth.

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Agenda

Monday 19 March 2007

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The first session will be joined by Azra Aksamija (Boston/Sarajevo), Ivan Kucina (Belgrade), Srdjan Jovanovic Weiss (Basel/New York), Katherine Carl (Basel/New York), Ana Dzokic (Rotterdam/Belgrade) and Marc Neelen (Rotterdam) from the initial group, Yane Calovski (Skopje), Barbara Galassi (Belgrade/Rome), Vahida Ramujkic (Barcelona/Belgrade), Jaume Nualart (Barcelona/Vienna), and a group of LHE participants residing in Rotterdam and Amsterdam, Arnoud Schuurman, Hugo Lammernik, Wietske Maas, Auke Touwslager, Ursula Lavrencic and Emiliano Gandolfi, curator at The Netherlands Architecture Institute, Rotterdam. The session will take place in the Harbour #1350, Maashaven in Rotterdam, studio space of Stealth.

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Agenda

Sunday 18 March 2007

morning

LHE Photo book:

After the Lost Highway Expedition (LHE) in August 2006, the next phase of the project called ‘Building Lost Highway’ is to start in March 2007. It is envisioned as a process that would last about half a year, with an idea to interlink and build upon expedition generated projects, art works, networks, architecture and politics based on the found knowledge.

A series of three work sessions is to spark this process towards a ‘source book’ from which a variety of interpretations and representations can be drawn for different occasions (a book, a symposium, an exhibition...) by those interested in the issues incited by LHE - not necessarily only by the participants of the process. The source book will be Internet based, collectively authored and later made into a printed draft.

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The first session will be joined by Azra Aksamija (Boston/Sarajevo), Ivan Kucina (Belgrade), Srdjan Jovanovic Weiss (Basel/New York), Katherine Carl (Basel/New York), Ana Dzokic (Rotterdam/Belgrade) and Marc Neelen (Rotterdam) from the initial group, Yane Calovski (Skopje), Barbara Galassi (Belgrade/Rome), Vahida Ramujkic (Barcelona/Belgrade), Jaume Nualart (Barcelona/Vienna), and a group of LHE participants residing in Rotterdam and Amsterdam, Arnoud Schuurman, Hugo Lammernik, Wietske Maas, Auke Touwslager, Ursula Lavrencic and Emiliano Gandolfi, curator at The Netherlands Architecture Institute, Rotterdam. The session will take place in the Harbour #1350, Maashaven in Rotterdam, studio space of Stealth.

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Agenda

Sunday 18 March 2007

morning

LHE Photo book:

Bosnian coffee from a Chinese cup. Adding to existing religious symbols: crescent moon, David’s star, cross, this cup offers a new hybrid: star within crescent, sign of realism or market occupation strategy?