The Great Imagination - Stories of the Future

INNOVATION
The exhibition proposes a journey through a universe of fictions and daydreams that at different times in the past have evoked possible futures in literature, film, comics, design, and architecture, among other fields. The design approach links the abstract idea of FUTURE to the world of TELECOMMUNICATIONS. The exhibition design is based on the reuse of aerials and antennas, obsolete rack cabinets, cable trays, and different supports and brackets, all found in Technology cemeteries and dismantled telecommunication stations. They have been reconfigured and upgraded to be transformed into eclectic exhibition displays.

CREATIVITY
The design of each display was conditioned by the recovered material found in these scrap facilities, inverting the standard design process in which design comes first. Everything was formally and functionally divided before being transformed, in accordance with the key steps in telecommunications processes, connected to the identity of each section of the exhibition:
- Data Storage: Obsolete Rack structures and raised access floors taken from data centres.
- Cable Data: Exhibition showcases were constructed using cable trays, taken from dismantled facilities.
- Wireless Data: This section shows the “Great Acceleration” period, starting in the fifties, when the explosion in city development took place and a new way of life presented an optimistic outlook thanks to technology and telecommunications. This section is a landscape of hybrid antennas transformed into exhibition supports to hold drawings, books, photographs, models and videos. 

FUNCTIONALITY
One of the main advantages of the materials used to make the displays is that they have come from environments requiring a high level of resistance; industrial settings or exposed to the elements. The displays were also built by means of the mechanical assembly of multiple independent pieces. They are therefore easy to disassemble, store and transport, making it possible to move the exhibition from one place to another. The contents can in turn be adapted to any of the supports, since the same kind of arm is used to hold them in all cases, which would allow the pieces on display to be readapted without affecting the display cases in accordance with space requirements or changes in content at future venues.

SUSTAINABILITY
The strategy focused on Reuse and Upgrading; trying to make the visitor think about obsolescence and questioning the design process through the inversion of standard stages. Reusing obsolete devices and transforming them into useful displays was the strategy implemented to reduce production requirements, and therefore, the consumption of unnecessary materials. Their original state was maintained, including damage in some cases, to show visitors that something officially obsolete can acquire a second and meaningful life; a way to demand different approaches to Circular Economy processes.