The Past of Things to Come

Abstract

The paper discusses the installation work titled “The Past of Things to Come” which was exhibited in Athens in 2018. The main idea was based on an alleged occupation of a building that developed into a critical and sarcastic narrative of a dystopic future by applying fictitious and real events. The visitors were invited to observe archive material consisting of photos, texts and video footage from surveillance cameras concerning a room which appeared to have served as a shelter in 2112 and its exterior surroundings. The work examines the case of Exarcheia and Athens at large, through a dystopian futuristic prism, suggesting a redefinition of the relations between the private and the public, the outside and the inside, the local and the global, the past, the present and the future without leaving room for fixed or secure positions.