SCI-FI RESET PROJECT BY ‘SISTEMA’ CHARITABLE FOUNDATION
THE PROGRAMME OF 2019 WILL BE RELEASED SOON
БУДУЩЕЕ ВРЕМЯ

SCI-FI RESET PROJECT BY ‘SISTEMA’ CHARITABLE FOUNDATION

Science fiction is inseparable from the notions of time and motion. It depicts society and culture as they evolve, but it does not play the role of futurology since it cannot predict the future. As a matter of fact, science fiction deals with modernity and tries to find answers to the question of how the people of today are going to change the world of tomorrow.                                                            

The world is changing and with it change the way we see and interpret it. Today, science fiction in Russia exists in the form of recurrent plots and images, and the borders of the genre are becoming too narrow for the sci-fi imagination. Therefore, we are launching a project aiming to reset sci-fi writing.

TOPIC OF THE YEAR: IMMORTALITY

Technological progress, development of health care and the latest advancements in science have brought us closer to the possibility of immortality than ever before. Our personalities, memories, experience, emotions, all the tiny traces of our existence are stored as digitised mechanical holograms or as super-originals made alive by artificial intelligence.



We suggest looking at the topic of immortality, which is traditional for art and literature, from a technological point of view: what will the world where immortality is achievable be like? Is this going to be the world of universal equality in the face of the digital absolute or a society where the inevitability of social stratification will be even more obvious when exacerbated by the fear of death? Will the humanity create new laws for those who must die and those who will live forever? 

STAGE 1

The first stage is a writing competition. We invite you to write a story set in the world of the future which may be either similar to our world or dramatically different from it, but it should be influenced by the technological trends of today. At the end of the competition the best works will be published in a book of collected stories and translated into English.


STAGE 2

Five contestants included in our short list will be announced as competition winners and will be awarded cash prizes, while our invited curators will provide artistic support for the stories in the form of graphic or video material, illustrations or any other format chosen by the curator.

WE ARE LOOKING FOR STORIES THAT COMBINE AN EXCITING PLOT WITH A VIVID AND SCIENTIFICALLY PLAUSIBLE VISION OF THE FUTURE

Jury
Galina Yuzefovich
critic, head of the jury
Nikolay V. Kononov
journalist, writer
Lev Manovich
digital culture researcher
Pavel Pepperstein
artist, writer
Konstantin Severinov
molecular biology researcher, professor at Skolkovo Institute
the prize
1 000 000 ₽

contacts
‘SISTEMA’
CHARITABLE FOUNDATION