Ultimate Exit: the Architecture and Urbanism of Tech-Secessionism

Martti Kalliala. Image via vanalen.org

Live Interview Series and Multimedia Installation Thursday, December 11 7:30pm—10:00pm Van Alen Institute 30 West 22nd Street New York, NY Can the titans of tech engineer an escape from government oversight? Initiatives like Seasteading and talk of Silicon Valley’s “ultimate exit” are part of a growing tech-secessionist movement in which a variety of actors from venture capitalists and companies like Google to cloud-based communities of individuals are imagining city-state-like sites escaping state jurisdiction. What might these enclaves look like? How do the architecture, urbanism, politics and psychology of exit intermingle? Ultimate Exit interviews the movement’s protagonists and critics and interprets these landscapes through a multimedia installation by architect Martti Kalliala and artist Daniel Keller. Participants: Martti Kalliala, architect and fellow at the Finnish Cultural Institute of New York; artist Andrea Crespo, Ed Keller, associate dean of distributed learning and technology at Parsons the New School for Design; philosopher, theorist Nick Land; futurist and writer Geoff Manaugh; and Susanne Tarkowski Tempelhof, Bitnation Founder and CEO. Multi-media installation by Martti Kalliala and artist Daniel Keller. This event is curated by Martti Kalliala and enabled by the Finish Cultural Institute in New York’s MOBIUS fellowship program. http://www.vanalen.org/elsewhere/events/ultimate-exit-the-architecture-and-urbanism-of-tech-secessionism/ This event is part of a week of public programs that kick off Van Alen Institute’s “Elsewhere: Escape and the Urban Landscape,” a multi-year inquiry that will explore the experience of escape in the urban environment.