The Center is a small think tank, home to a collection of philosophical and pop culture thinkers who embrace a mind-expanding agenda. We create cosmic media theory to better theorize and critique human destiny on Spaceship Earth.

Imagine exploring the fate of our species, the existential effects of media technologies, the ideas of films and artworks, and the meaning of our existence in a vast universe — in hopes of theorizing a better destiny for humanity and our planet. That's what we do. We're about the big futures. Join us.

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TOPICS FOR THE CENTER'S CURRENT PROJECTS:

1. APOCALYPTIC DESTINIES

The Center's first book takes on the deeper meanings of apocalyptic destinies. Click on book cover to view in Amazon.

We are interested in this existential question: why are doomsday scenarios proliferating in our media, movies, sciences, and ideologies? 

Humankind is more than a decade into the new century, in a new millennium that was supposed to provide utopian, enlightened, or optimistic possibilities for civilization. Instead, apocalyptic destinies are proliferating throughout global culture — apocalypses for humanity, the economy, the environment, the planet, and even the cosmos. Why? What does it mean?

It is crucial to understand these questions and destinies. What are these destinies saying about the future of human civilization and our ability to exist, flourish as a species, save our planet's ecosystem, and find meaning in a vast universe — a cosmos of which we are not the center and for which there is no creator. The Center for Media and Destiny has embraced these intellectual challenges and our critiques of apocalyptic culture have generated much media buzz. 

To explore these apocalyptic destinies, the Center has produced books, essays, panels, and an art exhibit on the topic (see right sidebar). Our newest projects are two small books (75-80 pages):

Gravity and Destiny: Cosmic Vertigo in the Space Films of the 21st Century

Catching Fate: Four Futures in The Hunger Games

2. LAND ART AND COSMIC MEDIA

Land Art rose to prominence in the 1960s along with the space age, with the Apollo program and the media theories of Marshall McLuhan paralleling the earthworks of Michael Heizer, Robert Smithson, and Nancy Holt (and others). A decade into the 21st century, the internet and the Hubble space telescope parallel the monumental earthworks of Heizer, Charles Ross, and James Turrell. Ex: Double Negative, Spiral Jetty (film: here), Sun Tunnels, Star Axis, Roden Crater. 

This project explores the strange parallels between artworks that are directly connected to the planet and media technologies that reveal a vast universe, with Spaceship Earth hurtling through the cosmic voids. We think the combination of monumental earthworks and cosmic media technologies (Hubble, etc.) directly challenge the metanarratives that determine meaning and dominate society on our planet.