In many ways, the estrangement one might feel when thinking of different possible worlds is the reflection of a connection between normality and novelty. Uncertainty highlights that our references and common tools of engagement and interpretation are not easy to get rid of. Thus some questions arise. For instance: is technology actually inaugurating a new perspective on human experience and opening up new possibilities? Is the ‘new’ really new, or the byproduct of a linear, posited - and ultimately totalitarian - notion of progress?

‘HAPTIC DREAMS OF FUTURE PAST’ was the result of a cooperation between EGEU (based in Lisbon) and LADØNS (Hamburg) that aimed to address the concept of new media by using past visions of the future to problematise and reflect about the future today. The show focused on a series of different questions regarding the possibility of extra-bodily worlds, and stressed the notions of ‘strangeness’ and ‘familiarity’.