On the occasion of the publication of the book, The Future Is Present by Philip Glahn and Cary Levine, artist Kristen Neville Taylor, Ulises co-founder Ricky Yanas, and Glahn discussed the relationship between art, technology, and the environment in their respective practices and research as well as the possibilities and challenges of what happens when artists and activists engage with the histories and continuities of progress, production, and utopia.

In The Future Is Present, Philip Glahn and Cary Levine tell the fascinating history of the visionary art group Mobile Image—founded by Kit Galloway and Sherrie Rabinowitz in 1977—which appropriated emerging technologies, from satellites to electronic message platforms. Based in Los Angeles, this under-studied collective worked amid urban crisis, a techno-boom, consolidating media power, and ascendant neoliberal politics. Mobile Image challenged fundamental conventions of the public sphere, democracy, communication, and political participation, as well as notions of power, representation, and identity.