[ExI] Art of the Future

[Kelly Anderson]

I was looking at one of the articles referred to in another thread,
and I stumbled onto Albert Robida... he was a French artist active
from around 1880-1920, and he drew illustrations of the future. He
obviously got a lot wrong, but he got a lot right too. Basically, he
was right on with many forms and uses of video (including television,
porn, Tivo, personal broadcasting, etc.) and he called WWII dead on.
He wrote an illustrated story about a great war fought to a great
extent from the air. He even got who was fighting who right, with
Germany and Japan on one side and the US, Britain and France on the
other. It was rather fun to look at his whimsical illustrations, and I
would encourage any of you to Google Images for Albert Robida, you'll
find some fun stuff.

Anyway, this all got me to thinking... how do we illustrate the future
that we envision? As I think about the future as I believe it will be,
I find it difficult to construct mental images of what such
illustrations might look like. You in a chair with a funny hat on?
What does that convey? How do you illustrate nanotechnology? Or
Artificial Intelligence? Sure, robots have been done, and for a long
time... but what else is out there.

If I'm wrong, and there is work being done in this area, who do you
find inspiring in the world of future art?

We have talked about Science Fiction as a vehicle for getting
transhumanist and futurist ideas out there... but what about the other
arts? Music, Illustration, Photography, etc. The images of the past
from Robida and others are inspiring. Science fiction often isn't, but
that's another thread on the ubiquity of dystopian visions.

Art has an indispensible role to play in preparing people's minds for
the future. We have movies like Gattaca... that are somewhat possible,
but dystopia is easier to portray in a movie than utopia. I am
reminded of a passage in the Book of Mormon... 4 Nephi chapter 1,
where they describe several hundred years of utopian peace in about
ten verses...

"And it came to pass that the thirty and seventh year passed away
also, and there still continued to be peace in the land."

It's the most utterly boring part of the whole book. It is a relief
that it is so short while other parts of the book are sometimes quite
fun and interesting. But this illustrates a point, that talking about
techno-utopia is also pretty boring. Let's say that you were able to
write accurately about today twenty years ago... about the good stuff,
what would you say?

"And kids have little devices that allow them to listen to whatever
music they want to, and you have access to more information than you
can imagine from a hand held device that doubles as a telephone."
Boring... I guess... reads a lot like The Age of Spiritual Machines...
LOL.

-Kelly