sadmanbarty

Well-known member
The future without the futurism


Auto-tune, drill-as-bladerunner, google glasses, Alexa, after effects in film editing
 

sadmanbarty

Well-known member
Inspired by third’s thing yesterday:

Throughout the end of the 20th century the future was dehumanising us. Now we’re humanising the future.



Jungle and the Atlanta rap trio who shan’t be named are as far as we’ve got with the respective futures they represent. The latter of which is full of human signifiers; jokes, family ties, etc.
 

sadmanbarty

Well-known member
This also has to do with the infantilisation of the future. The rounded off shake and rubbery texture of iPhone app icons. The apple logo itself. Quavo looking like a baby. No drill artist being taller that 5 ft 8.

The future of old was arguably concentrated adultnes- cold, rational, monochrome, etc.
 

Corpsey

bandz ahoy
I suppose the 'dehumanised' vision of the future we think of from Blade Runner et al is the result of those being dystopian thrillers. In practice, of course, harsh, ugly aesthetics aren't sellable.

We want huggable robots

big_hero_6.jpg
 

Corpsey

bandz ahoy
" in its turn the future is ceasing to exist, devoured by the all voracious present. We have annexed the future into our own present, as merely one of those manifold alternatives open to us. Options multiply around us, we live in an almost infantile world where any demand, any possibility, whether for lifestyles, travel, sexual roles and identities, can be satisfied instantly."

http://www.dissensus.com/showthread.php?t=14606
 

sadmanbarty

Well-known member
I suppose the 'dehumanised' vision of the future we think of from Blade Runner et al is the result of those being dystopian thrillers. In practice, of course, harsh, ugly aesthetics aren't sellable.

We want huggable robots

big_hero_6.jpg

A lot of the failed visions of the future required us to transcend our humanity. The third reich required a master race, communism required us to incentivised by the egalitarian good, dabiq and Jonestown and all that required godly intervention.

The successful futures have embraced and channeled more human instincts. Mutually assured destruction utilises our capacity for immense destruction and our desire for self-preservation. Capitalism acknowledges we like xboxes and Vimto.

The dystopia we’re often presented is about our unease with that. Terminator, the matrix, the hulk are all about nukes gone wrong.

There’s all sorts of stuff about technological innovation going too far.

Alien and the fantastic 4 are about us reaching too far.
 

sadmanbarty

Well-known member
Pattycakes/incredible string band/pharaoh sanders unease with this is expressed by retreating back into the world of the noble savage. Its anti-future.
 

sadmanbarty

Well-known member
We have a mass cultural trepidation about the future (hence the rise of reactionaries like corbyn, trump, garage, etc.) which is only beginning to be accommodated by way of the infantile, human, inadvertent future.
 

Corpsey

bandz ahoy
As silly and muddleheaded as the Marvel Universe is, it's probably the most popular manifestation of our current Ambivalence towards technology. As you say, a theme at least as old as "Frankenstein", and probably much older. (Prometheus e.g.)
 

sadmanbarty

Well-known member
As silly and muddleheaded as the Marvel Universe is, it's probably the most popular manifestation of our current Ambivalence towards technology. As you say, a theme at least as old as "Frankenstein", and probably much older. (Prometheus e.g.)

Maybe superheroes are the first manifestation of inadvertent, humanised future.

They live in cities like our own, they have normal jobs and relationships.

It would at least explain their dominant place in the current zeitgeist.
 

sadmanbarty

Well-known member
The future acted as a secular salvation for much of the 20th century. But salvation is about transcendence and the only tenable futures on offer inherently cater to and are defined by our inability to transcend.
 

sadmanbarty

Well-known member
The sexualisation of the future- porn always at the vanguard of innovation.

Violence not far behind (action films being cutting edge, the social media violence of drill)
 

sadmanbarty

Well-known member
How is the future presented to you lit in the 90’s different from the one presented to me in the 2010’s?

Underground vs mainstream

Anti-human vs human

Etc.

What informed these differences?

How will these differences impact their respective audiences.
 

Corpsey

bandz ahoy
Should music critics be reading 'Wired' and 'New Scientist' in order to understand what music is about in 2019?

"Instead of thinking about machine intelligence in terms of humans vs machines, we should consider the system that integrates humans and machines – not artificial intelligence but extended intelligence. Instead of trying to control or design or even understand systems, it is more important to design systems that participate as responsible, aware and robust elements of even more complex systems."

https://www.wired.co.uk/article/artificial-intelligence-extended-intelligence
 

Corpsey

bandz ahoy
"From the causal point of view Joyce is a victim of Roman Catholic authoritarianism, but considered teleologically he is a reformer who for the present is satisfied with negation, a Protestant nourished by his own protests. Atrophy of feeling is a characteristic of modern man and always shows itself as a reaction when there is too much feeling around, and in particular too much false feeling. From the lack of feeling in Ulysses we may infer a hideous sentimentality in the age that produced it. But are we really so sentimental today?

Again a question which the future must answer. Still, there is a good deal of evidence to show that we actually are involved in a sentimentality hoax of gigantic proportions. Think of the lamentable role of popular sentiment in wartime! Think of our so-called humanitarianism! The psychiatrist knows only too well how each of us becomes the helpless but not pitiable victim of his own sentiments. Sentimentality is the superstructure erected upon brutality. Unfeelingness is the counter-position and inevitably suffers from the same defects. The success of Ulysses proves that even its lack of feeling has a positive effect on the reader, so that we must infer an excess of sentiment which he is quite willing to have damped down. I am deeply convinced that we are not only stuck in the Middle Ages but also are caught in our own sentimentality. It is therefore quite comprehensible that a prophet should arise to teach our culture a compensatory lack of feeling. Prophets are always disagreeable and usually have bad manners, but it is said that they occasionally hit the nail on the head. There are, as we know, major and minor prophets, and history will decide to which of them Joyce belongs. Like every true prophet, the artist is the unwitting mouthpiece of the psychic secrets of his time, and is often as unconscious as a sleep-walker. He supposes that it is he who speaks, but the spirit of the age is his prompter, and whatever this spirit says is proved true by its effects."

(Jung)
 

Corpsey

bandz ahoy
Isn't there a sort of sentimentality in this 'everything's awful and getting worse' mindset, too, though?

It's somehow masturbatory. You can tell people enjoy it, like they're sniffing solvents.
 

Corpsey

bandz ahoy
And of course the sentimentality works backwards as well as forwards. Sentimentality over how things used to be. Things were terrible back then. Practically whenever it was!
 
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