What makes “ 未来考古 ” (Future Archaeology) interesting lies in indeterminacy, which can be further intensified by the extension and captivation brought by “ 未 ” (“wei”, meaning uncertainty) and “ 古 ” (“gu”, meaning ancientness). In Shuowen Jiezi, “ 未 ” means “ 味 ” (“wei”, meaning taste), and it can also be interpreted as “ 昧 ” (“mei”, meaning something unknown and hazy). The “ 味 ” is directly linked to art, which means that beauty is something that needs to be personally experienced and tasted. The “ 昧 ”, basically meaning something unknown and hazy, is exactly the most intuitive feeling that the future brings to us at present. Traditionally, the Chinese are nostalgic, and the character “ 古 ” consists of “ 十 ” (much) and “ 口 ”(mouth), meaning passing down from mouth to mouth. All that can be expressed now has been passed, and every time when we look back, we are actually oriented to the future. The section as a whole can be divided into three main parts: Ancient Future, Present Future, and Future of the Fu- ture. In an attempt to interpret history, we cannot avoid the deduction of the contemporary context. The presentation of the present is to shape history in the eyes of the future, while the imagination in the future perspective is to reflect on and observe the present.
Therefore, a major theme of the “Future Archaeology” section is to establish the connection between the virtual world and reality and promote the “dialogue” between contemporary art and classical art based on the ancient Shu culture and real life as well as the relevance between the past and present of Chengdu and artistic creation, against the backdrop of the human civilization sites and vivid presentation of the intangible cultural heritage with a macro and historic attitude, so that explanation and communication across time and space in various dimensions can be carried out.
The “Future Archaeology” section also attempts to present a spatial relationship between semantic meaning and context which are intermingled with each other. Thus, it does not arrange any fixed theme for the exhibition. Visitors can choose any entrance as they wish either for a theme line of gradual transition from real life to art space or for a line from the ancient times to the present and the future. The section is complicated but has an order to follow. In short, the exhibition method of “Future Archaeology” is a multi-layered combination of tracing history with looking to the future, which leads the viewers to think about the “meaning” in the “context” and to create their own “context” according to the “meaning”.