MFRU31: REINCANTAMENTO in conversation with Šum: Uncovering Lost Futures (The Story of PROGRAMMA 101)

In Uncovering lost futures: the story of PROGRAMMA 101 the artist collective REINCANTAMENTO intervenes in the context of MFRU to discuss publicly the research behind their work PROGRAMMA 101. The collective starts with a central inquiry: how can an entire vision of the future disappear almost overnight? Following Carlo Ginzburg's circumstantial paradigm, REINCANTAMENTO's archaeological investigation moves through archival fragments, conspiratorial whispers, and political traces. The research reveals not just what we lost, but what we might still reclaim. As we grapple with Silicon Valley's monopolistic grip on our lives, Olivetti's ghost whispers of forgotten roads not taken.

In conversation with REINCANTAMENTO, local collective for art-theory-fiction ŠUM will expand on the disappearance of the Slovenian computer manufacturer Iskra Delta (1974-1988), the firm coextensive with the resolution of the Cold War on the side of the West, which can be taken as a paradigmatic example of a lost future. Yet, if “now is not the time for any (Yugo)nostalgic longing after lost pasts or, arguably worse, futures” (Tisa Troha, Šum #16), all lament over lost futures overlooks that a greater and more clandestine dynamic may be at work, eliminating possible futures: a sign that a concept of the future is not equivalent to unlimited possibility, but rather that the number of possible futures is radically finite, if not only one. Lost futures are not post-factum laments over lost possibilities – instead, every lost future is a sigil of the actual and only necessary future that is in the process of being realized.

Šum is a Ljubljana-based journal focusing on contemporary art and theory-fiction, established in 2013 by a self-organized group of artists and theorists. Šum collaborates with art institutions in Slovenia and abroad, responding to or accompanying exhibition projects or research concerns with special thematic issues and events, bringing to the projects a specific take or perspective of Šum's editors and writers.

Miroslav Griško is a writer and philosopher in Ljubljana. His work focuses on the philosophy of war, physical and metaphysical eschatology, and anti-spinozist concepts of intensity. He is the author of Eshatološka vojna (Eschatological War), published in 2022 by KUD Apokalipsa (Ljubljana) and in electronic edition by Društvo Galerija Boks, and a forthcoming book (2025) with Primož Krašovec on capital, war, speed, homicide, and the secrets of higher and autonomous intelligences.

The 31st edition of International Festival of Computer Art (MFRU31) entitled Esoteric Ecotechnics. Irrational Computation and Conspiratorial Networking, focuses on underground and secret connections between media technologies, users, knowledge and information circulation. More: https://www.mfru.org/