Jonathon Keats: The Future Democracies Laboratory

Submitted by the Event Organizer

Modernism presents one-night only showroom experience The Future Democracies Laboratory: Political Innovations by Jonathon Keats.

Confronting simultaneous crises in American democracy and global ecology, a pioneering laboratory at San Jose State University has invented technologies to fundamentally alter elections and governance. Under the direction of experimental philosopher and artist Jonathon Keats, working in collaboration with SJSU faculty and students, the Future Democracies Laboratory has developed protocols for including all living beings in politics in order to better represent the interests of the whole planet.

On the eve of the 2024 election, as discontentment verges on revolution, the laboratory will open a showroom in San Francisco’s Modernism Gallery, unveiling technologies that radically rethink centuries of political dogma. “Our work originated more than a decade ago with a simple thought experiment,” Mr. Keats explains. “What if we re-engineered our political system to operate without people at the helm?” The lab replaced politicians with random number generators weighted to represent the will of the majority with high frequency but without perfect fidelity, providing a crucial check on the tyranny of the masses. These random number generators, one for each member of Congress, were configured to emulate the legislative process, with new laws generated by random mutation of legal code from the past.

A selection of technologies including a legislative mutation board and an experimental voting system for houseplants will be shared with the public and made available for licensing by companies seeking innovation in corporate governance.

“By presenting our speculative technologies to the public and allowing people to interact with them in our San Francisco showroom, we’re engaging the community in the process of deciding collectively what’s in our best interest: democratizing how we conceptualize democracy.”

Presented by MODERNISM INC.

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