TITLE: ABACUS ANTHROPOS
TEAM: Nabi Agzamov, Mariia Fedorova, Olesia Kovalenko, Alyona Shapovalova, Valdis Silins
GENERAL INFO: Speculative design project as part of the Strelka Institute
for Media, Architecture & Design Postgraduate Programme 'The New Normal', 2019
TECHNICAL INFO: PDF eBook, 13 pages, 2019

Children's stories about the anthropocene, set in a world 'after'
those events. The project aims to envision how current challenging world state would be represented in cultural history, and its lessons transmitted to future generation. The book tells one in a series of stories about catastrophes revealing planetary-scale interconnections and how technologies reinforce interdependence of our coexistence.

The plot develops around viral videos of dancing dolphins spread via social networks and thought to be 'cute' until it is discovered that such tense and unusual behaviour of the species ultimately leads to their death. The story intertwines a war between drug cartels, a usage of animals for military purposes, viruses caused by hormone modifiers, an infection of the marine ecosystem and the speed of information transmission via Internet providing an opportunity for 7 billion people to watch dolphins' death in real-time. The 'abacus' in the titles refers to an attempt of an 'accounting' of the vulnerable anthropocentric world.