Becoming World-Makers with a New Global Bauhaus

"Without leaps of imagination, or dreaming, we lose all the excitement of possibilities." Imagination leaps are the hallmark of Leonardo contributors, community, and colleague organizations. Such leaps abound throughout this issue of Leonardo, the themes of "Possibles" for ISEA 2022 Symposium and of "Welcome to Planet B" for the Ars Electronica 2022 Festival. At the same time, the specter of intersecting crises—the syndemic of climate catastrophe, the COVID-19 pandemic, violent conflict and war—demands the leap of reimagining the world not just as an exciting possibility, rather as an existential imperative. In this context, to truly reimagine the world, the New European Bauhaus (NEB) movement must safeguard against unintended neocolonial implications, by taking a leap to a New Global Bauhaus (NGB). NGB aligns with a collective vision of a more vibrant, just, and regenerative world. This is a leap into the future that NGB could inspire.

In Bauhaus Futures, Carl DiSalvo leaps from early Bauhaus models of design education to a contemporary model of "world-making." Early on in the 20thC Bauhaus Movement, its founder Walter Gropius created a 1922 diagram of Bauhaus curriculum featuring "bau" (building) at its center. The Gropius diagram was updated in 1933 by László Moholy-Nagy, who incorporated technology and "new media" (at the time) as key components of the bau-centered model. By contrast, DiSalvo's diagram "Pedagogy for a Postcapitalist Bauhaus" places "Becoming" as the epicenter of 5 concentric circles. By replacing "building" with "becoming" as its central tenet, DiSalvo invites us to reconsider Bauhaus as a blueprint for a dynamic social process rather than prescribed design principles for constructed edifice. All of these efforts attempt to answer the questions: "What do we need to know in order to make the world, here and now?" and "How is the world made, here and now?" Leonardo attempts to both answer and echo these questions as a call to action in reimagining the world.

If the core of New Bauhaus replaces "building" with "becoming," what the world might become will spring from the collective imagination of those forecasting it through art, science, and technology. As an example of collective thought leadership, a dozen interdisciplinary artists and scientists gathered in Ispra, Italy, 30 June 2021, concluding the following:

The NEB presents an urgent call to action, rallying, finally, all to contribute actively to the greatest challenge humanity has faced. As practitioners of SciArt, we think the NEB creates an opportunity to push these practices from niche to public field, thrusting SciArt beyond its conventional spaces (lab, studio, exhibition or performance). SciArt practitioners have hands-on experience in implementing artistic projects within scientific set-ups and vice-versa, often relating to diverse stakeholders; provoking new perspectives on exploration, introspection and behavior; and fostering meaning, emotions and values both individually and societally.

While covid-times, war, and climate catastrophe are dire, all the elements are present to take up the legacy of the historical Bauhaus as a new reflexive transdisciplinarity in what has been called by designer Neri Oxman The Age of Entanglement, to push decidedly into uncharted territories and start shaping an as yet unknown future. The SciArt movement has been showing this new direction, with growing strength, since the middle of the last century. Its legacy of method and invention constitutes a precious toolbox for the NEB, pointing ideally and conceptually to a reconversion of existing industries also with the contribution of artists, breaking the tired molds of the past. Transcending traditional discipline boundaries, mustering blends of methodologies and tools from any given discipline, SciArt practitioners are ready to not only redesign buildings and urban spaces, but also to imagine and design possible futures and the processes needed to get us there. Coupled with a strong capacity of devising strategies for public engagement, SciArt can also help find balance in the NEB triad of sustainable, beautiful and inclusive.

Leonardo embraces a New Global Bauhaus to invite a future of collective hope and healing; to disrupt and dismantle artificial boundaries of art, science, and technology; and to become a more vibrant, just, regenerative world. This is the leap of imagination most exciting, and...