Scattered Notes on Future Imaginaries, Collapse, and Exit Strategies – Part 1: On Sci-fi Aestheticism(s), Moon Landings, and Archaeologies of Humankind

This contribution comprises short notes and blends academic references with pop culture, contemporary art, diary-like entries, and sci-fi imaginaries. Each note can be considered as a stand-alone piece, written in its own distinctive style and tone. An exercise in creative writing, these notes aim to provoke and stimulate the reader to reflect on the overarching theme of what it means to organize for the apocalypse. Part 1 includes three notes, the first of which discusses whether our capacity to envision the future is shaped and perhaps constrained by dystopian aesthetic imaginaries diffused by mainstream sci-fi pop culture. We used the generative artificial intelligence (AI) software Midjourney to create four images representing four hypothetical futuristic landscapes with shifting relationships between humans, nature, and technology. The second note is a sarcastic diary-like entry describing a space module designed for humans to survive on the Moon. Finally, the third note recounts an episode from the sci-fi series Love, Death & Robots, where three humanoid robots land on an inhabited post-apocalyptic Earth and discover the archaeological traces of humanity’s tragically unsuccessful attempts to survive.