The Geodecity Project was a proposition, developed in collaboration with co-participants through a variety of forms, media and locations, and exploring the relationship between utopic ideals and the reality of individuals working together to build communities. In 2007, groups of Geo-pioneers travelled to a rural UK site and took part in a 2-day event combining survival exercise and future-visioning workshop. Staying overnight in the flat-pack geodesic domes they assembled, participants took this situation as a starting point: If this was to become the ideal ‘future city’, what decisions would need to be put in place now to ensure this fledgling utopia’s survival?

Subsequently, an online wiki was created, enabling Geodecians to further develop the rules, traditions and mythology of their new society. Outposts consisting of smaller subgroups of Geodecians travelled out to a variety of locations on an ongoing basis. In rural landscapes, art spaces, festivals, a primary school, a village gala day and the virtual world Second Life, Geodecians held workshops, staged expos, and the rituals generated by the project were experimented with and enacted. These temporary settlements served as both a ‘showcase for the future’ and as a generative space, enabling visitors to learn about, and participate in building the project. For three years Geodecity was shaped by the community’s collective desires, however this community eventually brought the project to an end in 2010.

“Geodecity was set up as an experiment, being both impartial and open to the discretion of its audience, what we took in was limited to a neon pink, Arts Council logo, Geo Pioneer drawstring bag and our personal attitudes and opinions. Reactor experiences, I’ve found, teach us more about ourselves and our personal hypocrisy.”

Jon Williams, account of a geo-pioneer at Destination: Geodecity