Dystopia

In this project there is much potential to look at past visions of the future, and the often satirical or ridiculous inventions and ways of life portrayed in novels and films. The dystopian futures shown in many of these pieces are often reflections on the time that they were made or written, and often not genuine predictions. That being said, aspects of these fictional works have come true long after they were thought up.

The most obvious example of a dystopian future coming true is 1984. George Orwell's 1948 novel had grim visions of the mid eighties, most prevalently the idea of 'Big Brother'. This idea, at the time just speculation, was essentially that of modern day CCTV - the thought of constantly being watched. This was combined with other concepts made famous by socialist authors after the First World War, novels such as Aldous Huxley's 'Brave New World' and Yevgeny Zamyatin's 'We' use the concepts of '2 + 2 = 5', and people being numbered and entered into giant government databases. All of these concepts are beginning to come into play, with the idea of ID cards in the UK being the latest step towards a 1984 for this century.

One film that's imagery and ideas have survived into the future they were predicting is Terry Gilliam's 1985 comedy Brazil. Apparently Brazil was once under the working title of 'Monty Python's 1984' and you can see why. As well as the pollution, Brazil makes satire of beaurocracy, with the single nationwide corporation 'Ministry of Information'. There is also a big emphasis on terrorist bombings, which have been in the news every day since 2001.

With these dystopian works of fiction being some of the best predictions of the future, perhaps for my Design Futures I should look at what we would not like to see, or if all the things we don't like at the moment being continued for 10 years. That way I might actually make an accurate prediction.

PC World - The 25 Worst Tech Products of All Time

http://www.pcworld.com/article/125772/the_25_worst_tech_products_of_all_time.html

The idea of looking at this article was to see what makes a bad media-related invention. It emerged during a search on the subject of iSmell (which finished 24th), but includes software as well as physical creations. There are some features which are apparent across the list; most fundamentally is the concept itself, some of which are quite ridiculous. Priceline.com were selling cheap petrol online, it would arrive a few days after ordering in the form of a card which could only then be used in a very select few petrol stations. Another reason for many of the things being on this list is that they were badly made and would often break, which is not the sign of a bad idea, but of bad manufacturing and is not really to be considered when thinking about Design Futures.

There are two more reasons for concepts making this unfortunate quarter-century, both of which are through the tech being released too early. In the case of some software, such as (no. 4) Disney's The Lion King CD-ROM for Windows, there was a requirement for a cutting edge graphics card that was mostly unobtainable for everyday Windows users. Hardware technologies have also failed through being released too soon, like in the case of iSmell, which didn't catch on because the technology was ahead of it's time, and cost too much for the consumer. However, it is possible that people also just don't want to smell websites. I think if angled correctly, marketed well and made both available and cheap, the idea of digital smells could catch on.

Digital Futures: iSmell

It has always been the case that people consuming media want to be immersed as much as possible in whatever form of entertainment they are using. In film, the addition of sound and colour made going to the cinema a much richer experience. These standards have improved with surround sound and sharper quality images, but there are still fundamental improvements that could be made. In 1960, Hans Laube's Smell-o-vision was the first attempt at including a third sense in the viewing experience, it didn't catch on. There was a much later attempt in 2001 called iSmell which used receptors and the equivilent of printers mixing 128 'Primary odours' to transform smells into data and then back into synthetic smells. It is not apparent why this technology has not progressed, perhaps it has limited appeal and the hardware is too expensive for domestic use. If it were still in play these days, perhaps users of Facebook might have their smell as well as their image available to download.

Lev Manovich - The paradoxes of digital photography

PUBLISHED IN:
Photography After Photography.Exhibition catalog.
Germany, 1995.
Available http://www.manovich.net/TEXT/digital_photo.html
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Lev Manovich
THE PARADOXES OF DIGITAL PHOTOGRAPHY

In this text, written in 1994, Manovich discusses the differences between digital and analogue photography. He asks whether digital photography and film making are more or less 'real' than their analogue predecessors, as new methods enable easier manipulation and editing of image.
Much of the essay is about the then emerging technology of digital photography; most of his references (Jurassic Park is the height of CGI at the time of writing) and some points have been made obsolete by developments in both photographic software and hardware since 1994, but the theories are mostly still relevant, and the questions unanswered.

There are some sections of the essay that I found more interesting and relevant than others. Manovich's views on realism, and the ideas of 'photorealism' and 'hyperrealism' are still in play even today. Photorealism is the idea that 3D or digital imagery is aiming not to replicate real objects, but photos of those objects. Hyperrealism is when imagery is too clear, clean or even realistic to look like something the eyes are used to. Techniques to combat hyperrealism have been put in place, include 'faking' depth of field by adding pseudo focus, and adding motion blur to 3D animation and CGI to simulate film footage.

The idea of digital imagery's aspiration of realism or photorealism is, however, untrue in more recent entirely 3D animations such as Finding Nemo. As the 3D images are not on screen with film footage, the aim is no longer realism or photorealism, and the imagery becomes cartoon-like. That being said, conventions of film such as camera movement are unnecessarily in place, perhaps to justify the medium to film traditionalists.

The points made by Manovich seem very accurate of today considering it was written 14 years ago. I can perhaps use some of his theories to help predict what will happen next. Instead of thinking of gaps in the market, think of how technology has developed, and why society accept some advances and discard others. This could for practical reasons or the principles behind the new concepts. Maybe, rather than making things smaller, faster or combining technologies, look at aspects such as broader appeal, widespread availability, or the social factors within media.