Artists Rasheedah Phillips and Sophia Al–Maria in conversation with Head of Arts at CERN Mónica Bello at Art Basel

Programmed by artist and e-flux co-director Julieta Aranda, Guest Artist at CERN in 2017, Art Basel's Conversations programme was a platform for dynamic dialogue around the current issues that have been shaping contemporary culture. Under the title Rewriting the Future: Science Fiction and Contemporary Art, the programme put in conversation artists Rasheedah Phillips from Black Quantum Futurism and Sophia Al-Maria with Head of Arts at CERN Mónica Bello. “According to the principles of quantum physics, “things” at a subatomic scale behave so bizarrely that they are inconceivable to human experience and imagination. As a CERN theoretical physicist commented recently, 'the arrow of time does not exist in fundamental physics, and have it on our human scale is a massive question; and we do not feel we are close to an answer,'” Mónica Bello remarked during the discussion. Through the influential work of Ursula K. Leguin and Octavia Butler, the artists and curator explored the potential for speculative fiction to dismantle fatalistic understandings of the future and to conceptualise tools for experiencing reality through various times, spaces and scenarios.