Fore Cast
Video Installation | 2006
Fore Cast is a multi-channel video installation and speculative opera set in a post-apocalyptic wetlands landscape, envisioning a future locked in perpetual global conflict. Inspired by Albert Einstein’s infamous prediction that "World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones," the work stages a haunting cyclical war—one where corporate leaders devolve into primitive combatants in a world ravaged by environmental collapse and geopolitical dissolution.
Originally installed at White Box in Chelsea, Manhattan, Fore Cast filled the gallery space with immersive projection, sound, and a semi-circular arrangement of video screens. The videos played in a continuous loop for six days and one hour, marking the invention of a new week based on a proprietary time scale derived from ancient Assyrian and Babylonian astronomical systems. Through this temporal disruption, Fore Cast speculates on how future societies might recalibrate time, warfare, and governance in response to the failure of existing systems.
At the center of the work is a fictional opera of six factions vying for control over the remnants of a civilization. Negotiations in sleek corporate boardrooms devolve into physical violence in collapsing environments (deserts, marshlands, submerged cities) staged as allegories for extractive capitalism and climate devastation. The result is a fractured narrative, rich with mythological and historical references, that examines cycles of power, violence, and environmental degradation.
Project Details
Year: 2006
Location: White Box, Chelsea, New York City
Collaborators: Sound design by C. Spencer Yeh; performers from the opera and visual art community
Materials: Multi-channel video installation, projection mapping, site-specific audio, looping narrative structure
“I imagined Fore Cast as a living timeline that could bend and break. I was interested in the absurdity of how history might repeat itself after collapse, and how even time could be privatized and redefined. It was my first operatic work, staged in a marshy future that wasn’t too far off from what we see today.”— Mattingly
Description
Blurring the lines between installation, cinema, and opera, Fore Cast explores speculative futures shaped by ecological collapse and endless war. The project critiques cycles of violence embedded in systems of power and resource control, while proposing a surreal and poetic meditation on time, myth, and survival. It speaks directly to contemporary concerns about militarization, privatization of nature, and the legacy of imperial infrastructure. At once theatrical and philosophical, Fore Cast remains a prescient early work in Mattingly’s exploration of environmental futures and collective imaginaries.
