Brighton Animators Networking Group
Finking of the Future
With the latest collaborative BANG event on the cusp of exploding into a frenzy yet to be seen on this site, I thought I’d share some of my thoughts on the topic - The Future.
Apart from Hoverboards and a bully called Biff Tannen the idea of what the future holds is something I’ve never really seriously considered. This latest BANG brief has made me realise that apart from planning on what I’m going to have for dinner that evening or on a Sunday dreading the week of work which waits, I don’t really think all that far into the future. I blame my childhood, when your mum lays your clothes out for the forthcoming day on the bed for you there isn’t really much reason to plan anything. It doesn’t stop there, with little enthusiasm and only a splattering of consciousness I’d get dressed in whatever clothes were left for me and then trudge downstairs to my ready made breakfast. Breakfast hadn’t been in my mind five minutes previously, it hadn’t needed to be, my morning routine didn’t require me to think ahead, it was just something that life (mum) gave you.
As an official and fully fledged adult I think it would be very difficult to act with little regard for the future. No-one, not even my girlfriend, lays my clothes out on the bed for me anymore and I don’t (normally) get breakfast made for me, and now I do things like recycle. Recycling is forward planning, thinking ahead. It isn’t really thinking of what things are going to be like; it’s more just pandering to the needs of the future. My only relationship with the future is being scared of it and partaking in the odd gesture to try and make it happy. It’s a pretty chilling beast really, a complete enigma where you have to decide for yourself what garments to adorn yourself in.
What will possibly be happening in the future? I don’t know. It’s difficult to imagine that anybody does. A friend I had when I was younger was pretty confident that by the year 2000 we would all be skidding dust into the faces of old woman on our Hoverboards. I don’t think anybody could have persuaded him otherwise. He was wrong…..I think. If I was to ask him now he’d perhaps say robots are on future’s horizon, I think that’s the obvious one. But they’ve been promised for ages haven’t they? Even the first Terminator film was made about 175 years ago. Where are these robots and when are they arriving? As far as I’m aware they have been a matter of 5 - 20 years away for the last 60 years. My scepticism is rising. Flying cars? Teleportation? Moon dwellings? These are all exhilarating propositions but we’re more likely going to be faced with a peach flavoured Coca Cola or a Kit Kat with cashew nuts, and you can bet they will only be limited edition, lasting only a fraction of the infinity that the future is. Creme eggs the size of Easter eggs would be good.
Where have we come since the year 1999? What would we have predicted for the decade we’ve just seen pass by? The same as we are predicting now I would guess. Invisibility coats and cloning. Despite some mad scientists declaring to have accomplished these feats but wanting to keep it a secret I haven’t seen much evidence of it becoming reality. It’s just fruitless teasing, like the millennium bug, death and destruction to us all, the only millennium bug I had was a hangover. One of the cans of beans in my spare room full of tinned food did come in handy the morning of Jan 1st 2000 but there certainly was no need for me to spend my savings on long life food. I’m beginning to think these future inventions are one big lie. Stuff happens but the idea of the future invokes an excitement in me that I very much doubt will ever be tangible. The thing with the future is it is never going to arrive and I’m always going to fear it and covet it in equal measure…..
My head is hurting so I'll stop there. I'll see you all in the future sometime, probably Saturday 24th October.....2009?
Apart from Hoverboards and a bully called Biff Tannen the idea of what the future holds is something I’ve never really seriously considered. This latest BANG brief has made me realise that apart from planning on what I’m going to have for dinner that evening or on a Sunday dreading the week of work which waits, I don’t really think all that far into the future. I blame my childhood, when your mum lays your clothes out for the forthcoming day on the bed for you there isn’t really much reason to plan anything. It doesn’t stop there, with little enthusiasm and only a splattering of consciousness I’d get dressed in whatever clothes were left for me and then trudge downstairs to my ready made breakfast. Breakfast hadn’t been in my mind five minutes previously, it hadn’t needed to be, my morning routine didn’t require me to think ahead, it was just something that life (mum) gave you.
As an official and fully fledged adult I think it would be very difficult to act with little regard for the future. No-one, not even my girlfriend, lays my clothes out on the bed for me anymore and I don’t (normally) get breakfast made for me, and now I do things like recycle. Recycling is forward planning, thinking ahead. It isn’t really thinking of what things are going to be like; it’s more just pandering to the needs of the future. My only relationship with the future is being scared of it and partaking in the odd gesture to try and make it happy. It’s a pretty chilling beast really, a complete enigma where you have to decide for yourself what garments to adorn yourself in.
What will possibly be happening in the future? I don’t know. It’s difficult to imagine that anybody does. A friend I had when I was younger was pretty confident that by the year 2000 we would all be skidding dust into the faces of old woman on our Hoverboards. I don’t think anybody could have persuaded him otherwise. He was wrong…..I think. If I was to ask him now he’d perhaps say robots are on future’s horizon, I think that’s the obvious one. But they’ve been promised for ages haven’t they? Even the first Terminator film was made about 175 years ago. Where are these robots and when are they arriving? As far as I’m aware they have been a matter of 5 - 20 years away for the last 60 years. My scepticism is rising. Flying cars? Teleportation? Moon dwellings? These are all exhilarating propositions but we’re more likely going to be faced with a peach flavoured Coca Cola or a Kit Kat with cashew nuts, and you can bet they will only be limited edition, lasting only a fraction of the infinity that the future is. Creme eggs the size of Easter eggs would be good.
Where have we come since the year 1999? What would we have predicted for the decade we’ve just seen pass by? The same as we are predicting now I would guess. Invisibility coats and cloning. Despite some mad scientists declaring to have accomplished these feats but wanting to keep it a secret I haven’t seen much evidence of it becoming reality. It’s just fruitless teasing, like the millennium bug, death and destruction to us all, the only millennium bug I had was a hangover. One of the cans of beans in my spare room full of tinned food did come in handy the morning of Jan 1st 2000 but there certainly was no need for me to spend my savings on long life food. I’m beginning to think these future inventions are one big lie. Stuff happens but the idea of the future invokes an excitement in me that I very much doubt will ever be tangible. The thing with the future is it is never going to arrive and I’m always going to fear it and covet it in equal measure…..
My head is hurting so I'll stop there. I'll see you all in the future sometime, probably Saturday 24th October.....2009?
Add a Comment
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Comment by Luke Hay on October 8, 2009 at 1:33pm -
I hope everyone's animations are coming along nicely. I saw this on the BBC site and thought it might give people a few last minute ideas.
Children draw own visions of 2020
"Children asked to come up with ideas for life in 2020 have designed labour-saving devices, magic pencils to do their homework and, of course, robots."
...no sign of giant creme eggs but plenty of robots and things.
Looking forward to seeing everyone's final animations,
Luke
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Comment by Maria J Parra on September 17, 2009 at 12:00pm - Slowly and lots of testing! Hope to get it done on time!
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Comment by Patrick Green on September 15, 2009 at 9:37pm -
Thanks for the moral support guys.....oh, and a small bone to pick with a potential few, who noticed that i'd written "limited addition" rather than "limited edition" and didn't tell me!! Luckily my girlfriend spotted it to save me eternal embarrassment.
I think my final piece will be a collection of small ideas and maybe quite abstract, how is everyone else getting on?
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Comment by Kate Genevieve on September 15, 2009 at 6:25pm - I second that. & don't sweat it- you don't need to come up with one mind blowing future idea. Just have a play. Different ideas, different mediums- you can enter lots of little clips - it don't have to be a one minute opus. You got tons of ideas :)
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Comment by Maria J Parra on September 11, 2009 at 3:15pm
- Wow! I am speechless, Patrick... when are you going to write a novel? I think you will do a brilliant job!
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Comment by Luke Hay on September 9, 2009 at 11:30am
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A very interesting, deep and thoughtful read. All I have to add it that I reckon if you got one big hollow style Easter egg you could probably fill it with the contents of about 25 creme eggs and then have your own 'homemade' giant creme egg. One to think about next Easter perhaps...
Really looking forward to seeing the futurey animations from everyone next month.
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Comment by Patrick Green on September 9, 2009 at 9:31am
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Haha,
Luckily my Mum insisted on the school uniform, the only embarrassment was when it was non-uniform day and she'd forget (obviously I had no concept of the idea that I should have remembered)
FIZZY MILK!!!! What......*shudder*
That Distracted Lights blog looks very interesting, I'll have a read/watch today at work, hopefully it will inspire an idea in me. Which answers your question - so far I am thinking of nothing, I'm hoping to come up with something totally radical but I need to fall over and hit my head ona sink first.
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Comment by Kate Genevieve on September 8, 2009 at 10:05pm
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Great post, Patrick! Glad you’re reassessing the whole of your life as a result of the BANG collaboration project. I think you’ve seized on the very conundrum I was pondering at the beginning of this project- that the only truly noticeable change is innovation in stuff that is so incredibly mundane- peach flavoured Coca Cola indeed, hell they’ve just released fizzy milk!
It’s like the Starbucks phenomenon, Starbucks was THE thing that was omnipresent on a day-to-day level at the beginning of this century- not flying cars or robot servants, but a sugary coffee shop with a very homely aesthetic. What strikes me about past visions of the future is that no one has quite conceived how mundane the 21st century is, although Huxley’s “Brave New World” predicts a permissive society that prioritises pleasure, and there’s certainly something somatic about the range of flavoured syrups one can put in a cappuccino these days. Generally, the future seems to have been conceived of as a place that was bold and exciting, not comfy and sweet.
The Distracted by Lights blog compiled some brilliant clips of past future (though Bill and Ted has been sadly omitted):
Distracted by Lights blog: Past Futures
I think David O’Reilly’s animation “Please Say Something”, a film about a cat and a mouse in the distant future, totally nails it. The future is shown as a place which looks visually amazing, but remains incredibly, hilariously and heart-breakingly mundane: http://www.davidoreilly.com/work/pss.
But if there’s one thing I know, it’s that I am always wrong about places before I get there. What’s fascinating about the Future Machine project is the idea of a rolling programme of animations and the variety of styles and takes on the future that will play back to back – it’ll be interesting to see how differently people think. What are you thinking of Patrick? An alien panda apocalypse? The singing pyramids of 5029? Nice to have a festival like White Night encouraging experimentation.
And by the way, don’t know about the invisibility cloaks, but robot’s are definitely here (just not where we need them, in our houses laying out our clothes): http://hplusmagazine.com/articles/ai/here-come-neurobots
Did your Mum ever play with your sheepy willingness to wear whatever she put out for you? I can imagine you turning up to school in a tutu and a swimming cap: “What?! My mum laid it out, I had to wear it.”
In complete agreement about the giant cream eggs. When? WHEN?
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