Alternative Unknowns, 2015

The Extrapolation Factory, in partnership with New York City Emergency Management, assembled a group of New York City-based practitioners to create a simulator for pre-enacting possible emergency scenarios. The team was invited to a conversation with NYC Emergency Management, focusing on critical issues facing the city. The team members used the content of the discussion to inspire a fictional emergency script, seven speculative artifacts for emergency preparedness and a theatrical simulation space for enacting an emergency. The objects created were installed in the simulation space, which served as a stage for a series of four improv performances by actors who interpreted these emergency preparedness objects and the multiple potentials for how they could be used.

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Research interests
Infrastructure imagination · Participatory futures · Simulation
Project credits
A project by: Chris Woebken and Elliott P. Montgomery
Design assistant: Emma Verhoeven
Simulation script: Tim Maughan
Artists and designers: Nanu Al-Hamad, Isaac Blankensmith, Fabien Caperan, Fernando Cremades, Matt Delbridge, Sam Hart, Dr. Natalie Jeremijenko, Matt Jones, Clay Kippen, Lost Cause Inc. and Miriam Simun
Performers: Kevin Alvir, Zenzele Cooper, John Peery and Candace Thompson

Commissioned by: apexart, through its Open Call
Curated by: Chris Woebken and Elliott P. Montgomery
Partner: New York City Emergency Management

Special thanks: Nicola Twilley, for connecting us with apexart



Detail: xRats by the Environmental Health Clinic (Natalie Jeremijenko)


Speculation in City Government, roundtable at apexart, 2015