Abandoned buildings Quote by Wolfi Landstreicher
““I am not against playfully imagining possible decivilized worlds. But for such imaginings to be truly playful and to have experimental potential, they cannot be models worked out from abstracted conceptions of either past or future societies. In fact, in my opinion, it is best to leave the concept of “society” itself behind, and rather think in terms of perpetually changing, interweaving relationships between unique, desiring individuals. That said, we can only play and experiment now, where our desire for the apparently “impossible” meets the reality that surrounds us. If civilization were to be dismantled in our lifetime, we would not confront a world of lush forests and plains and healthy deserts teeming with an abundance of wildlife. We would instead confront a world full of the detritus of civilization — abandoned buildings, tools, scrap, etc., etc. Imaginations that are not chained either to realism or to a primitivist moral ideology could find many ways to use, explore and play with all of this — the possibilities are nearly infinite. More significantly, this is an immediate possibility, and one that can be explicitly connected with a destructive attack against civilization. And this immediacy is utterly essential, because I am living now, you are living now, not several hundred years from now, when an enforced program aimed toward a primitivist ideal might be able to create a world in which this ideal could be realized globally — if primitivists have their revolution now and enforce their program.””
About This Quote
Source Essay: The Future of Civilization, 2025
The quote argues that imaginative play should abandon fixed societal models, focusing on fluid relationships between individuals, and sees the collapse of civilization as a source of creative possibilities rather than pristine nature.
In simple terms: Play with post‑civilization chaos, not nostalgic nature.
Explore creative futures beyond static societies.
Themes
Mood
Type
When to use this quote
- urban exploration
- art projects
- environmental art
- game design
Key Concepts
Questions to Reflect On
- What can we learn from abandoned infrastructure?
- How does individual desire shape new societies?