Post #112039 by freddiefreelance on Thu, Sep 2, 2004 1:03 PM

On 2004-08-30 14:09, aquarj wrote:

I don't want to see THE future as per the way things are going......At least there was excitement and hope about the future back then.

I don't know, guys - personally I still choose optimism, even if it might be called blind. I can't stand dystopian future themes. No offense if other people like to focus on the negative, but personally I don't see the attraction.

Remember that in the 50s and 60s, the Cold War presented the prospect of total mutually assured destruction, something that people often overlook when looking back today and seeing the technology-driven optimism of the mid-century. Also remember that theme parks are about escapism! At least that's why I like them, and why I like tiki too for that matter. Nobody in the 50s was interested in visiting nuclear-winter-land, even though that was one of the stark realities of the day. I do agree though that people have probably gotten more sophisticated and skeptical about the future that is marketed to them, and that there actually may be a larger proportion of the population that somehow enjoys visions of a dark future. But I'm not in that group.

If you really look around, many of the mid-century futurist concepts have come to life! Picture phones, image walls (ie, flat panel TVs), instant worldwide communications, centralized and distributed in-home controls, GPS, and on and on. Even 25 years ago a lot of this would've been pure fantasy.

Regarding Shag and Tomorrowland, actually I wouldn't use the term retro for Shag. I think his style is more about a specific esthetic than about a specific time. My opinion is that he could develop some fantastic designs for Tomorrowland, not necessarily sticking to the style of his paintings, but just based on his esthetic and also his extensive "graphic vocabulary". But still, I'm not sure that he'd be the right person.

Someone like Frank Gehry could do a neat job. He seems like one of the best known modern architects with the ability to offer a modern, non-retro vision of the optimistic future. In fact, look at the convention center that Disney already had him design. But still, everything by Gehry looks just like Gehry, so there would probably be too much individual identity, as opposed to a broader future theme.

-Randy

I gotta agree here, the future holds alot of promise. We already have:

Robot Vacumns, like Roomba from iRobot;

Flying Cars, like the M400 from Moller;

Mega-Float Floating islands, like this test airstrip in Tokyo Bay.

Imagine future developments like space environments that are Fuller spheres made made up of inflated polygonal plastic bubbles with carbon nanotube spars & wires in tension for structural integrity, built like russian nesting dolls with micro-G water filled algae & krill farms on the outside to create air & protein, and to absorb radiation & micrometeorites before they can reach the inner spheres' living quarters.

Or a sea going, floating city with a population of several million, that's built out of thousands of individual interlinked floating blocks, powered by nothing more than the temprature differential between the surface & the water 100 feet below the water, and that can travel around the ocean like a giant Portugese Man-O-War.

Or using a series of hollowed out asteroids set in eccentric, cometary orbits outside of the plane of the ecliptic to run as "shuttles" between the Earth & Mars, the asteroid belt & the outer solar system's Gas Giants (Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus & Neptune) to transfer goods & people "up" to the outer solar system and send goods & raw materials back "down" here.

Or starships traveling to our nearest exrasolar neighbors powered by hexagonal solar sails miles on a side but only 2 atoms thick and driven forward by nothing more than the weight of the photons in a ray of sunshine; sails raised, reefed & repaired by an army of tiny insect-like robots, and pulling a payload of 500 people & everything they need to build their own space environments around another star, & build more starships to go even further out...