Welcome to The Unknown, The Unknowable, The Future, StoreFrontLab's 2015-2016 exhibition series. The Unknown investigates the underlying doctrines that guide and motivate us as we design cities, advance technology, and create art. We ask our community to consider the many fundamental principles that fuel our most vital decisions.

Setting the stage for the season's focus are two special exhibitions initiated by StoreFrontLab resident curators Jacob Palmer and Arianne Gelardin:

September 2 - 18, 2015
Chrome Cavern and The Expanded Consciousness Reading Room
DBA Lab and StoreFrontLab Curator Jacob Palmer
An immersive experience into a psychedelic, mirrored tunnel designed to broaden one's thinking through a collection of classic and contemporary philosophical and scientific texts.

September 26 - November 5, 2015
Indigo Mind
Cara Levine and StoreFrontLab Curator Arianne Gelardin
A group exhibition celebrating the work of neurologist Dr. Oliver Sacks, featuring artists who explore a range of brain and body phenomena.

StoreFrontLab has also selected seven extraordinary projects—ranging from month-long installations to one-time talks and workshops—that explore the deepest regions of philosophical and scientific inquiry. Running from January to June 2016, we are pleased to present the following projects.

January, 2016
I/O Intuitive Object
Yoann Resmond and Michael Mersereau
A full-scale installation comprised of obsolete and basic digital technologies that engage the public with an interactive sound score. MMYR culls from the past and looks to the future for signs of intelligence, both human and artificial.

February-March, 2016
Awe Lab
Jenn Doyle Crane and Amy Ress
A salon and workshop series exploring the ways in which artists, designers and other creative makers employ awe as a tool for inspiration and generation, and as a community-centered approach to life.

March and April, 2016
Sound + Consciousness
Jotî Dee and Aver Collective (Laura Cohen and Colin Wang)
A series of workshops and events that explore the relationship between sound and consciousness through the lens of physiological, neurological, and artistic perspectives, creating a space where auditory information rivals ocular data.

April, 2016
Soundings
Christopher Damien and Eric Herron
An experiment in ecological creativity that reimagines music’s traditional role of mediating between the human and the non-human, between nature and culture.

April, 2016
Dimensions of Time and Space
Lauren Marie Taylor
A series of salons and activities that examine the formal and cultural aspects of time and space, through reading, writing, making, performing, and audience engagement in participatory activities.

April, 2016
Thoughts on the Cyanometer and Quantifying the Unquantifiable
Lindsay Tunkl
A presentation that demonstrates the many ways humans have attempted to quantify things that are unquantifiable. With a strong emphasis on notions of desire, discovery and exploration in its many forms, the presentation discusses art works of all mediums, greater concepts and constructs such as time, and metaphysical explorations.

May-June, 2016
The Wild Known / Machines for Absurd Living
The Absurdist (Manuelita Antonio Rangel-Sosa and Johannes Seemann)
An interactive installation that translates abstract thoughts into conceptual, participatory art. The created experiences provide a playful way to explore old and new existential needs and share takeaways as tokens of remembrance.

If the sum of human knowledge is merely a speck of dust on a window, we invite designers, artists, and thinkers to speculate on the incomprehensible world beyond that window.

THE UNKNOWN, THE UNKNOWABLE, THE FUTURE

For Season 3: The Unknown, The Unknowable, The Future, StoreFrontLab engages creative thinkers to explore the fundamental questions of humanity. Designers, artists, researchers, musicians, writers, philosophers, scientists, and futurists push beyond the bounds of their practice in order to develop an expanded and unexpected view of reality—one that informs our work as creators and shapers of society.

The Bay Area has always been a breeding ground for cultural revolution and technological innovation. From the Gold Rush to Google, New Age to social media, the region attracts inquisitive thinkers and doers. Extending our gaze from urbanism out into the natural and supernatural sciences, StoreFrontLab welcomes proposals for a series of investigations that visualize and make tangible the grandest of ideas in the realm of the unfathomable and fantastic.

What if the most profound answers lay far beyond our usual modes of inquiry? Why do we dream? Why are we here? Can a machine think? What will happen to us after we die? Is there a place for us among the stars? By indulging in the loftiest of questions, we may discover a common ground amidst our differences.