Fixed and Floating, On Platform Mobility

Floating & Fixed, co-presented by the Contemporary Arts Center and The Shop at the CAC, traces a history of platform design from motorcar to mobile phone, exploring Henry Ford as a platform designer and crucial precursor to contemporary platform ecosystems. Stephanie Sherman, a design researcher, curator, and strategist working across, art, architecture, technology, and media, will lead this discussion.

The Fordian automotive epoch marked a critical turning point for platform logics. Ford combined coordinated planning and emergent response through mass assembly production and global logistics. At the same time, his vision mobilized redistributive economics, media, and culture. In the process of motorcar proliferation, Ford reorganized planetary spacetime. Is this why radical architect and systems designer Buckminster Fuller called Henry Ford an artist of the assembly line? What can Fordian futurisms show us about how to adapt platforms today? Through lesser known stories of Fordian automotive sagas, we’ll explore the social and technological potential of automated mobility platforms to come.