The City in 2100
This theme invited us to rethink our lifestyles and our urban spaces. What will the sustainable and pleasant city of tomorrow look like? What links to territories and rural spaces? Participants were invited to produce a story that would provide a credible and original vision of cities in 2100.
The jury paid attention to the story, the quality of the plot, and the formal implementation; but also and above al to the realistic nature of the background, the city in which people live.
Jury members
Anne F. Garréta is a writer and professor of literature at Duke University (USA) and Rennes 2 (France). She has published seven novels, including Pas un jour, which was awarded the Prix Médicis in 2002. She is a member of OuLiPo, and a jury member of the Prix Médicis.
Antoine Buéno is a writer and advisor to the French Senate in charge of monitoring the work of the Sustainable Development Commission and the Foresight Delegation. He is also a specialist in utopia and science fiction, which he taught at Sciences Po. He is the author of anticipation novels and essays on subjects as varied as the sociology of smurfs, the virtues of non-voting, and birth control. His latest book, Futur, notre avenir de A à Z (Flammarion), has been presented in the media as the essential book on foresight.
Benoît Peeters was born in 1956. He has published more than 50 books, translated in various languages. Essayist, biographer of comics author Hergé, as well as of Jacques Derrida and Paul Valéry, he is also the scriptwriter of the famous comic book series Les Cités obscures (Casterman) in collaboration with François Schuiten.
Célia Blauel has been Deputy Mayor of Paris since 2014. After a mandate in charge of the Ecological Transition, Climate and Water, Célia Blauel has been in charge of the Seine, Foresight Paris 2030 and Resilience since the June 2020 municipal elections.
Image of © Joséphine Brueder / Ville de ParisCristián Jiménez was born in Valdivia (Chile) in 1975. Before becoming a filmmaker he wrote short stories and studied sociology and philosophy in Santiago, Heidelberg and London. His films have been part of the official selection of festivals like Cannes, San Sebastián, Sundance and Toronto, among others. He has also directed music videos for artists like Mika and Indochine. He is Head of the Audiovisual Creation Department at Universidad Austral (Chile).
Erik F. Øverland is the President of The World Futures Studies Federation, WFSF and the Co-Editor-in-Chief and co-founder of the European Journal of Futures Research, EJFR. He holds a part time position as a guest researcher at the Freie Universität Berlin and is a senior policy advisor to the Norwegian Minister of Education and Research. He has represented Norway as official delegate to several working groups and committees in the EU and the Council of Europe. He has also conducted futures studies for agencies and business enterprises both in Norway and abroad. Dr. Øverland has published several books and scientific articles about futures studies, such as CARPE FUTURUM. How to manage the future (Cappelen Publishing, 2010).
Marie Christine Lemardeley is Deputy Mayor of Paris, in charge of Higher education, Research and Student life, since her election to the Paris Council in 2014 and in 2020. She is an emeritus professor of American literature, specialising in John Steinbeck. She was also President of the Sorbonne-Nouvelle - Paris 3 University between 2008 and 2014. She is a Knight of the Légion d'honneur, Knight of the Ordre des Palmes académiques and Officier of the French National Order of Merit.
Image of © Joséphine Brueder / Ville de ParisSophie Tran is Deputy Director of the Cinema Unit at ARTE France. A graduate of the Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences de l'Information et de la Communication (CELSA), she previously worked at France Télévisions, where she was programme advisor for cinema and deputy director of programme acquisitions for cinema and foreign fiction.
Laureates
The short story En attendant Cléo takes us to the day of May 21, 2105, in a Paris emptied of its cars, its pollution, its incessant noise. It's very hot, but it's good to live there. Vertical farms, high-altitude forests on top of buildings, artificial lakes to collect wastewater, all live with new technologies, drones and high-speed transportation. As the hours go by, we follow Auguste, we discover his daily life. Auguste is waiting for Cléo. Will she join him or will she prefer to escape to new horizons?
En attendant Cléo, whose title is reminiscent of Beckett's Godot, is a universal story about love and waiting, and makes us reflect on what makes happiness... which is not always to be found elsewhere.
In 2100, in order to fight against the rarefaction of resources and the dramatic consequences of climate change, cities, which have become hubs of innovation, have created exchange programs compatible with the drastic limitation of international transport in order to promote the circulation of knowledge and to engage the inhabitants more deeply in the process of climate resilience.
We follow Ren, a resident of Shenzen who has just arrived in Lyon, and who maintains a correspondence with Achille, a native of Lyon who has himself moved to Shenzen.
As the story unfolds, we discover Ren's daily life and her involvement as a citizen in a Lyon whose climate is equivalent to that of Algiers today, and we learn about new city services, new societal and even ethical advances dedicated to social cohesion and the well-being of all.
This comic depicts a future city called the Agropolis. The story follows the history of the Old Quarry farm and the lives of some of its community members, exploring how transportation, labour rights, social care, etc., work in this “post-utopian” society.
The story is narrated by a long-horned bee who also lives at the Old Quarry. This solitary bees embody what it means to be a 'good ancestor'; its brief life is spent caring for future generations.
Canopée is the story of an unusual job interview between the city recruiter Cléa and the candidate Léo, a pretext for the reader to discover the futuristic Paris of 2100. Everything has changed there: people use horse-drawn carriages, hoverboards and boats, water has replaced most of the roads, working conditions are respectful of employees, and flora and fauna now flourish in the "Great Forest", which adjoins the capital and whose objective is to eventually extend so far that it will merge with the German forest.
At the end of this day, while we leave Leo convinced to leave his job in Agen for Paris, we join Clea's bittersweet reality, made more bearable by innovations in artificial intelligence.
The story takes place in a district of Paris that has been transformed by major disasters during the 21st century. It shows how society is organized around desirable and sustainable housing projects. The plot revolves around the integration of new residents, the Huangs, into a community residence in which services between people harmoniously structure daily life. The arrival of these new residents, survivors of the collapse of their building in Mongolia, which they were able to leave thanks to the Migration and Solidarity Program, disrupts the well-oiled organization of a "model" neighborhood in terms of social cohesion and environmental quality.
But why do we never meet Quinn, the Huangs' child? What lessons can be learned from solving the enigma?
In Papillon perdu, we follow the day of Naomi, a scientist very committed to the harmonious cohabitation of humans and other species. A seemingly ordinary day, from the morning wake-up call to the classic scrolling of the hours of a working day where Naomi meets Jame, a mischievous collaborator who keeps her a big surprise, which will be revealed to the reader at the end of the story.
Without going as far as pure science fiction, this short story is rich in a myriad of small details of a futuristic daily life where artificial intelligence and new technologies are present at every moment, and where progress and innovations seem to have stopped damaging the environment, making possible a return of lost biodiversity.
This short story explores, through the eyes of four characters, a vision of the 22nd century where societal innovation takes centre stage. While clean energy, urban farming technology and efficient public transport are important as the backdrop of the city, its most important aspects are the social institutions that have taken root.
Based around decentralized governance and communally owned infrastructure, the city’s bottom-up institutions are oriented around empowering citizens to improve local conditions, while fostering a strong sense of interpersonal trust in the process. The resulting network of participatory grassroots allows us to envision the city as an evolving ecosystem.
This theme invited us to rethink our lifestyles and our urban spaces. What will the sustainable and pleasant city of tomorrow look like? What links to territories and rural spaces? Participants were invited to produce a story that would provide a credible and original vision of cities in 2100.
The jury paid attention to the story, the quality of the plot, and the formal implementation; but also and above al to the realistic nature of the background, the city in which people live.