This 7-minute documentary produced with filmmaker Nate Romenesko (Nathaniel Stern’s paid studio assistant) explores some of the artist’s and his team’s intentions, processes, and findings over several years of work on the traveling exhibition and series, The World After Us: Imaging techno-aesthetic futures – from conception, through production, and to documentation and installation.

Also see The World After Us catalog, 200-pages at 10×10 inches (free PDF, or as hardcover book).

The World After Us: Imaging techno-aesthetic futures is Nathaniel Stern’s traveling solo exhibition of sculptures, installations, prints, and photographs that combine plant life with electronic waste, and scientific experimentation with artistic exploration. They take the forms of: a wall-hung jungle of computer detritus and biological reclamation; fossilized and reconfigured phones and laptops; and reimagined and re-formed electronics.

What will digital media be and do, after us?
What will my laptop, phone, or tablet look like in a million years?
How will our devices weather or grow over time?
What else might our techno-waste be, and how might we sense and feel this? Where might electronics lead our environmental and economic politics?
Can we plan and act toward new and different futures?

This body of work transforms what we discard so as to rethink conversations, thoughts, and actions around media production, use, and waste. At stake, whether in our everyday interactions or on a much larger scale, are the relationships between humans and the natural world on the one hand, between politics and commerce on the other.

The World After Us makes available a 200-page hardcover catalog, this short documentary, and an audio tour. It is generously supported by the UWM Office of Research.

Want this documentary for offline and individual use? Download The World After Us documentary as an mp4 at 1080p (1GB file).