Happenings Archive

Cities in Science Fiction
Copenhagen-Beijing

Please join us for this event, where we will explore the urban future from the vantage point of Copenhagen, one of the smallest capitals in the world, and Beijing, the great megacity.

The cities of the imagined future are often gigantic, glittering creatures, covering entire coastlines or even planets. They are floating on risen oceans, lie domed under the sea or deeply buried underground. In speculative fiction, many different types of narrative city structures keep reappearing – abandoned cities, feral suburbs, the city as a machine or a bazaar. A large portion of the Earth’s population already inhabit an urban world and share an urban future, and looking at the social and technological problems facing real cities today, even some of the most dystopic sci-fi scenarios do not seem farfetched anymore.

In his fiction, the Danish author, Kaspar Colling Nielsen, has laboured to build a 3,5 km high mountain for human habitation in a near future Denmark, a country with no skyscrapers of any significance (Mount Copenhagen, 2010). And he has unfolded a future, civil war in Copenhagen that takes place due to a collapse of the welfare system and greediness of the financial sector (The Danish Civil War 2018- 2024, 2013.) Colling Nielsen is celebrated as one of the most original voices in contemporary Danish fiction and has a style characterized by imaginative and tragicomic tales about life’s existential conditions and dilemmas. In this discussion, we will cover important topics as how to mitigate the complex physical and mental living environments in modern cities and literature’s role in shaping and visualizing better futures for all.

Kaspar Colling Nielsen (b. 1974). Born and raised in Copenhagen. Alongside his writing, Colling Nielsen works as a lecturer at Copenhagen Business School and as a screenwriter for film and television. He holds a degree in Business Administration and often participates in public discussions on socio-economic matters. He has a long standing interest in China.

Friday,September 28 at 7:30pm-50RMB(includes a drink)

Book a seat :https://yoopay.cn/event/93421661