Views of Planet City Live

In this multi-part event accompanying the exhibition Views of Planet City, storytelling performances and lectures by Liam Young, Damjan Jovanovic, and Jennifer Chen take the audience on journeys through the speculative worlds the three artists have developed in response to Young's original vision of Planet City—a single city designed for the entire human population of the Earth, in a consensual response to the encroaching climate crisis. A concluding panel brings all four artists behind the Views of Planet City exhibition (whose second part is on display in SCI-Arc Gallery in the Arts District, Downtown LA) in a conversation about the collective process of interpreting the Planet City scenario, which has resulted in five idiosyncratic, yet intersecting samples of architectural futures.

https://www.sciarc.edu/events/events/views-of-planet-city-live

Schedule: 

1:00pm-1:30pm 
Planet City and the Return of Global Wilderness, storytelling performance by Liam Young 

Following centuries of colonisation, globalisation and never-ending economic extraction we have remade the world from the scale of the cell to the tectonic plate. In the storytelling performance ‘Planet City and the Return of Global Wilderness’ we go on a science fiction safari through an imaginary city for the entire population of the earth, where 10 billion people surrender the rest of the world to a global scaled wilderness and the return of stolen lands. Set against the consistent failure of nation states to act in any meaningful way against climate change, Planet City emerges from a global citizen consensus, a voluntary and multi-generational retreat from our vast network of cities and entangled supply chains into one hyper-dense metropolis. 

1:30pm-2:00pm 
Planet Garden, lecture by Damjan Jovanovic 

Damjan Jovanovic presents Planet Garden, a video game simulation that reimagines artificial superintelligence as a planetary steward rather than a destructive force. Planet Garden introduces GAIA - a sophisticated AI system that transforms Earth into a thriving, planet-scale garden. Moving beyond dystopian narratives, the project envisions how AI could guide humanity toward a Kardashev Type II civilization, managing vast networks of solar satellites and asteroid mining to create sustainable abundance. Through GAIA, a Large World Model that serves as both protagonist and technical framework, Jovanovic investigates how superintelligent systems might help transcend extractive economics while fostering harmony between human and non-human life. The presentation explores how speculative video games can help us envision technology as a force for environmental regeneration and planetary stewardship. 

2:00pm-2:30pm
Pink Earth, storytelling performance with Jennifer Chen and Lev Rodriguez Shivers 

In this live storytelling performance, artist Jennifer Chen and voice actor Lev Rodriguez Shivers will narrate the tales of our planet through the eyes of remote sensing satellites. Part essay, part story, the narration will weave between present reflections and future chronicles, giving us a view of Earth in the epoch of planet city against the projected light of the remote sensing imageries from Pink Earth. 

2:30pm-3:15pm
Panel discussion with Liam Young, Jennifer Chen, John Cooper, Damjan Jovanovic, moderated by Erik Ghenoiu