Spencer Lowell: Futures Past

A nonlinear documentation of technological acceleration from the past two decades, as captured through Lowell's frank photographs of infrastructures and inventions

Guided by a lifelong interest in both art and science, American photographer Spencer Lowell (born 1983) explores the evolving relationship between technology and the natural world in his practice. Futures Past displays over 50 of Lowell's photographs, spanning from 2007 to 2024-a period of rapid technological acceleration worldwide. Featuring Swiss binding and an arresting cover image of crumpled tin foil, the volume documents a condition in which biological life and technological systems are no longer separable yet remain unevenly aligned. The images-often depicting power plants, lab experiments and computational imagery-are presented without hierarchy or chronology, reflecting the simultaneity of the systems that define our current moment. They consider technology not as a departure from the natural world, but as one of its emergent forms; within this continuum, human agency remains present but diffuse, distributed across systems growing larger, faster and less legible.