A project by Jonas Staal and Florian Malzacher
Training for the Future 2021: Collectives, Collectivity and Collectivations

Many of the utopian ideas of ’68 – from the welfare state to gender equality and sexual liberation – though far from being fully accomplished, are still part of our present discourses and hopes. What we seem to have lost fifty years later though is the very idea of future.

On a political and military level, the now 20-year old "War on Terror" has defined the future as a never-ending source of potential threats, from suicide bombings to cyber terrorism and biological warfare. On a cultural level, popular science fiction generates endless scenarios for the end of the world, whether in the form of title waves, comets, or alien invasions. And indeed, the ecological state of the planet and the refusal to consequently act against climate change, the old and new geopolitical confrontations backed up by nuclear power, the growing injustice and the lack of any global solidarity make it hard to look optimistically into the future. In this context, any modest proposal against this dystopian obsession of the 21st century – such as a universal basic income, or an international law against tax havens– is instantly set aside as utopian in terms of being dangerous and naïve. But what is more utopian than to think our current path of mass pollution, extremist consumerism and never-ending wars against terrorism will lead to any improvement Now more than ever, is the time to "be realistic, demand the impossible": to become utopian-realists, and to reclaim the future as our site of common struggle once again. 

In a time of increasing global crises in politics, economy and ecology, dystopia has become the new futuristic norm. Training for the Future is a utopian training camp where audiences are turned into trainees to pre-enact alternative scenarios and reclaim the means of production of the future. Due to the coronavirus pandemic the 2021 edition has a decentralized form, with trainings taking place in parallel across the world: acting collectively, even when apart.