Notes and reflections on the Visual Assembly that took place during the Transition to a (more) socially and environmentally just future conference in Vienna on October 4, 2025.
The conference in Vienna gathered us around a single, urgent theme: how to shape an environmentally and socially just future. Our Visual Assembly was built on two contrasting visions of future—one hopeful, the other bleak—yet both were anchored in the same set of challenges that loom ahead: ecological collapse, a shrinking population, and the lingering after-effects of state violence.
Seven inquisitive participants arrived for the workshop. Some were drawn by the idea of exploring alternative futures, others by the prospect of experimenting with new forms of collective decision‑making, and a few were motivated by an interest in David Graeber’s thinking. Four of them eagerly embraced the utopian scenario, while the remaining three, more hesitant, chose the dystopian track.
In the utopian group, participants imagined themselves as a free community in the year 2070, establishing a fresh settlement. They began by sketching individual homes, then expanded their drawings to link those dwellings together with stone pavements and patches of trees.
The dystopian group took on the roles of members of a high‑committee governing a society that had survived ecological collapse yet managed to preserve a high standard of living for its citizens. Each participant was tasked with designing a town within a regional sector, providing essential services while answering to a fictional supreme leader. They later tried to devise national infrastructure that would bind those towns into a coherent whole.
The utopian vision blossomed into leisurely houses, parks, playful activities such as rolling in barrels, and spaces for direct democratic deliberation. Initially, participants preferred the privacy of their personal habitats over the perceived chaos of interconnection. Over time, they cultivated permaculture gardens and vertical farms, sharing food according to need.
Conversely, the dystopian scenario produced imposing palaces, monotonous mass‑housing blocks, hospitals, ministries, secret police, soldiers, and an extensive rail network. Power came from nuclear plants; food was supplied by monoculture fields and greenhouses. One committee member added recreational facilities for citizen recuperation, but imposed a rule that a thousand hours of work were required before a day off could be taken there. A semi‑permeable border was erected around the care region to prevent citizens from other regions fleeing into this region.
The facilitator then introduced crisis events for both worlds. The utopians learned that distant nuclear reactors were melting down, threatening radioactive fallout. The dystopians faced an unstoppable wave of space pirates smuggling a potent new drug that sparked an addiction epidemic, luring bored citizens away from their work duties.
Faced with these threats, the utopian participants, after much hesitation and sorrow, decided to relocate their living spaces underground, preserving a central public dome above ground. They also proposed a compromise: two days per week spent above ground, balancing exposure risk with the desire for sunlight and open air.
The dystopian group responded by establishing government‑run rehabilitation centers and commissioning a space‑based laser to intercept the pirate vessels. A newly created “Ministry of Thought Soundness” began broadcasting morale‑boosting speeches to keep the populace focused.
At the next stage, the facilitator connected the two worlds. A newly discovered mineral in the utopian realm offered a miraculous cure for the dystopian addiction crisis. In return, the dystopian scientific institutions could provide nuclear‑science education to the utopians, enabling them to develop radiation‑proof construction techniques. This exchange prompted several participants to switch tables and collaborate across the divide.
An engineer from the dystopian side was tasked with building a mine to extract the mineral while negotiating with the utopian inhabitants. Simultaneously, two utopian inhabitants travelled to the dystopian world to learn nuclear‑physics in the advanced research institutions there. They had to construct their own dwellings and pursue their studies without violating the strict rules of their regime. The engineer from the dystopian camp succumbed briefly to corruption, carving out a private leisure retreat and neglecting his mining duties. In response, the dystopian authorities dispatched secret police to the dystopian world to deter similar behavior among him and other workers (who would do the mining). Meanwhile, the utopian dwellings of the guest researchers proved popular among dystopian citizens, who were eager to learn about this novel way of living.
Secretly, utopian guests began drawing free enclaves within the dystopian world, sparking a nascent social movement. Negotiations with the high‑committee grew increasingly tense as the two worlds’ interests collided.
When the exercise concluded, we facilitated a reflection on the possible futures we had imagined. Participants acknowledged that the coming era could simultaneously host both utopian and dystopian strands, interacting in unpredictable ways—or perhaps favor one over the other. We all agreed that the future will be anything but certain, but will still carry elements from our current world.
After the assembly, several participants expressed a desire to adapt the exercise to their own contexts. Some envisioned using it with children in educational settings, while others, such as a social geographer, saw potential for a more technical, city‑focused application. We promised to stay in touch and support their continued explorations.
