There is widespread consensus that we are living at the end—of democracy, of liberalism, of capitalism, of a healthy planet, of the Holocene, of civilization as we know it. In this book, drawing on radical futurisms and visions of justice-to-come emerging from the traditions of the oppressed—Indigenous, African-American, multispecies, anti-capitalist—as materialized in experimental visual cultural, new media, aesthetic practices, and social movements, T. J. Demos poses speculative questions about what comes after end-of-world narratives. He argues that it’s as vital to defeat fatalistic nihilism as it is to defeat the false solutions of green capitalism and algorithmic governance.
How might we decolonize the future, and cultivate an emancipated chronopolitics in relation to an undetermined not-yet? If we are to avoid climate emergency’s cooptation by technofixes, and the defuturing of multitudes by xenophobic eco-fascism, Demos argues, we must cultivate visions of just futurity and multispecies flourishing.

“T.J Demos’s inspiring vision for decolonial antiracist ecosocialism resoundingly defeats today’s fatalistic nihilism. When comradeship exceeds particularity, we can forge the transformative solidarity necessary for an emancipatory egalitarian future.”
— Jodi Dean

T. J. Demos writes widely on modern and contemporary art and his essays have appeared in journals such as Grey Room, October, Third Text, and Nka. He is also a critic, writing for magazines such as Artforum and Texte zur Kunst. His published work centers broadly on the conjunction of art and politics, examining the ability of artistic practice to invent innovative and experimental strategies that challenge dominant social, political, and economic conventions.