Through a Glass, Darkly

“For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face” is the King James Version of a segment of 1 Corinthians 13:12. The verse is intended to address our human ideas of what is to come and what awaits in our collective future. The “glass”, or more accurately translated as a mirror, reflects our individual image and is, in essence, an imitation or unreal image. Our foresight is just that, and we will only see the future in its true form when it is the present. In popular culture, we adore depictions of future cultures with robust artificial intelligence, sophisticated robotics, flying automobiles, simplified space travel, Apple-esque, sterile utopias, and dark, dangerous, dystopian mega-cities. Science fiction is a beautiful example of an ever-evolving, subjective literary and film genre. Design is its most subjective aspect. Sure, a lot of the sci-fi movies that Generations X and Y have grown up with tend to show everybody wearing bland Nehru jackets and living in a shiny, cookie-cutter society, but as our cultures have drastically changed from the 1960’s to the 2010’s, so have each era’s respective visions of the future. More and more future-visions produced today in art and film keep plenty of elements grounded in the present. Of course, this is not a rule across the board, but it is a trend that I will discuss later. This expose is inspired by a great article from The Verge that chronicles the evolution of “cyberpunk” in visual and written arts. In no way am I attempting to argue one form of the future; they are all different distances from the time period that I am typing in but, nonetheless, will be presented in such an order. I would rather like to explore the design and the trends of these styles and the way each style makes our society feel as well as what real-world situations are comparable.

I am an artist; I draw, paint, and create digital design. As a kid and as an adult, my favorite things to draw are robots. I am fascinated by building a simple form out of intricately-designed parts and a basic understanding of human physics. The first real, non-cartoon movies I remember watching were Star Wars, probably around age 4-6. I had/have an animatronic C-3P0 and R2-D2 piggy bank; I guess that is the reason I like robots. Those two droids are widely considered the most iconic, well-designed robots in the history of cinema. Therefore they are a standard from which to pull design inspiration. The late Ralph McQuarrie orchestrated all the design of the original Star Wars trilogy and is a legend for that. For myself and many others, 3P0 and R2 were a phenomenal segue into the realm of science fiction design. This community has developed a huge following through social media. The style, or school if you will, of design discussed in the Verge article is labeled as "cyberpunk". It is best described as a growth of sci-fi art and design into a more minimalist, polished form. Groups such as the Shinobi Gang or Neuromancer mass-blog about a myriad of different designs and art forms curated from across the internet or made in-house. Many of its members are graphic designers who contribute to sci-fi film design. One of whom, the Otaku Gangsta, has over 13,000 Tumblr followers. I follow him more for inspiration than anything. This mutual sharing of styles is enabled by social media and is essentially a great crowdsourced form of art education. As such the skilled designers behind cinema's great sci-fi epics started out admiring their predecessors. Every designer has his or her own styles, and much of their work on a given project can be influenced by the project's purpose or even a societal insecurity. In this way, design is a social commentary and, for the purposes of my writing, it can be focused around perceptions of the future.

‘The Future’, in mental images drawn from movies, posters, video games, and so forth, is often presented a being drastically different from our present. Insanely high-tech societies that usually appear in a dichotomy of really pleasant or absolutely miserable. Whether it is the clean, gilded setting of an Isaac Asimov robot novel or anything from a Terminator movie, the future is bizarre. A great example within current entertainment is the upcoming X-Men: Days of Future Past. A brand new trailer was released on March 24, and reveals way more of the movie than had been previously teased. Specifically, both this trailer and its predecessor show us at least 2 timelines. One is 1973 and the other, THE FUTURE. This is a solid discussion piece not only about a changing world, but also humanity’s tragic clothing trends (in all honesty, I love 70’s attire). We get to witness Wolverine wearing both a skin-tight future suit and a tabbed-collar, floral print.

This film is going to be dramatic and bleak and therefore the designers of the film have employed all the classic fine art tropes of that particular subject matter. The outfits are black, the sky is black, the killer robots are a dark-metallic color, but might as well be black. The mutants are being hunted and exterminated by a robotic legion of schutzstaffel in the future timeline. There is this fear present that not even the conglomerates of uniquely-powered humans can handle the onslaught. As a whole, this future Earth appears as a dark, place in general, symbolic of oppression. The shadowy streets and skyscrapers of cities like in this X-Men installment and in films such as Blade Runner directly represent an inherent lack of safety and security in the future; anything goes. People, whose impressions of the future fit this dystopian hell, may be distrusting of the technological advancement of society. They may have a fear of a robocracy, or at least the semi-real possibility of rogue autonomous warfare droids. They may see the singularity being humanity’s loss of humanity. It is entirely understandable in this age of drone warfare. As man-made objects gain autonomy, we sense a loss of security and expect bad outcomes to manifest themselves in a similar manner to the apocalyptic cityscape shown in the above trailer.

At this point, I feel it most appropriate to bring in the two wildest and most iconic franchises in science fiction: Star Wars and Star Trek. Yes, it is a sin of sorts to discuss these simultaneously and interchangeably but, as the most advanced of future timelines, they function together (full disclosure: I prefer Star Wars so I will really just talk about that). Both stories represent a future where anything can happen and has happened and nothing is really sacred. They are devoid of religion, aside from the Jedi Order and however it may truly be classified, and are diverse cornucopias of sentient species. Star Wars features outfits verging on neo-classical Hellenic/Arabian with smatterings of Victorian glamour. There are intelligent robots, hover cars, endless fleets of starships, clones, terrifying beasts, and, of course, the lightsaber. The real majesty of the design in Star Wars is the symbolism of the struggle. It is essentially a good versus evil, blue lightsaber versus red lightsaber binary war. There are minor factions such as Jabba the Hut's version of the Mob but, generally it is the Rebellion up against the Empire. 

The Empire is swarthed in the best of "evil" design. It is vaguely reminiscent of the Third Reich, both in color and aspiration. The shiny black and dark grey. Minimalist form highlighted by occasional areas of complex switchboards and other exposed mechanical spaces. The flawless, all-white Stormtrooper armor conceals the humanity and creates a legion that embodies oppression. This design is very German in and of itself. The Bauhaus movement, began around 1919 taught modernist design. Buildings and objects were to reflect function in an elegant form and, as a general rule, be cloaked in monochromatic colors; simple, rational, and functional. As a representation of societal fears, the Galactic Empire is the strictly controlled, dictatorial nightmare that we also see in films such as The Hunger Games. The original trilogy did not mention the fact that the Stormtroopers were all clones. This level of implementation of the science is brutal when considered outside of the Star Wars canon. It is the absolute enslavement of a group of humans, unaware of their real purpose as replacement cannon fodder, to a futuristic tyrannical order. Of course, in our world, the cloning of humans is still illegal because we fear the potential applications, whether it be lab testing or warfare, and the unnatural occurrence of life. The Empire also represents today's privacy concerns better than it could have in the 70's due to the technological factor. The fears of a futuristic society like this, and like the one in X-Men, stem from the atrocities of the past. It is said that history repeats itself, and we fear a repeat of the early 20th century.

After addressing the most distant of possibilities, I want to stay within the realm of space exploration, and look at the masterpieces of James Cameron and Ridley Scott. Their seminal works of Avatar and the Alien/Prometheus series offer the most realistic depictions of humans exploring the universe in the sense that the alien cultures are distant, the technology looks plausible, and every human-made dress and design is rather current. Each directors movie does differ on the form of alien civilization: one being essentially in the stone age, and the other hyper-advanced. These two futures are most acceptable because human culture is relatively unchanged from today. The design of spacecraft, exoskeletons, and weaponry is grounded in shapes and functions of present infrastructure. For example, the heavy-duty P-5000 lifting suit from Alien is marked as a Caterpillar product in the iconic yellow and black color scheme. As most designs hold true to existing military-industrial machines existing today, so do most motives. Humans are the ones making the first moves. We are advancing our culture and ultimately paying for it. We are corporatized and never truly reverent to our first encounters with extraterrestrial sentient life.

The last of the space-related futures are a mixture of concepts, but both are very similar in culture and appearance as they originate from the mind of writer/director Neill Blomkamp and the design crew at the Weta Workshop. The defining character of both District 9 and Elysium is their grittiness (and Sharlto Copley playing crazy people). The poverty is much more visible in contrast with the high-tech amenities of general society or the wealthy class. Particularly, District 9 shows an alien race assimilated into the slums of Johannesburg, South Africa and Elysium features Matt Damon in a third-world Los Angeles.

The realism of these future Earth’s comes from the trickle-down technological advancement. The slum villages in both cities are dirty, decrepit, and cobbled together. Here and there exist little pieces of high-tech life such as robotic police, Damon’s exoskeleton, and the alien race’s even bigger exo-suit. This stylization of the future is extremely plausible from a real-world economic view. Cell phones are perfectly analogous. Some rural African, South American, or Asian societies have cellular phones. Some have enough internet access to have social media accounts yet it all contrasts sharply with the rest of their cultural lifestyle. Slowly, a once exclusive product filters down the myriad of humanity’s social classes. Designing a future where the rich and poor are even further segregated takes into consideration real problems. As education weakens and populations grow, bleak futures such as Blomkamp’s beautifully depressing landscapes could prove to be reality. In Elysium, the wealthy have all but left the planet for a utopian, clean space station illustrating one of the most extreme scenarios just short of Wall-E. Isaac Asimov wrote about this sort of exodus decades before with his Robot series. Earth had become overpopulated and mostly urban which together caused psychotic problems for its inhabitants; the wealthy have all left to colonize new, nearby planets. Today, we can see faint beginnings of these realities with powerful magnates like Sir Richard Branson building the private space travel sector or privileged oasis-cities like Dubai sprouting out of desert.

The nearest of futures is Asimovian in nature. Two films fit this category well. I, Robot, based on his eponymous novel, explores the advent of automaton servitude and labor. Her, a very recent masterpiece, heralds the inevitable evolution of artificial intelligence defined by conversational ability and minimalist design. Both are interchangeable in the way their technological advancements alter the social structure. The sentient androids and Roomba-like, task-specific bots of I, Robot replace human labor (ie. jobs) and in some cases serve as companions. However, in Her, the AI can serve as a lover. As a magnificent piece of futurist work, Spike Jonez’s Her has created a legitimate debate over the possibility of an artificial intelligence fully replacing the need for human relationships and even being capable of inspiring love.

Truthfully, it is not a huge stretch from online dating. Social media is now a primary form of beginning and strengthening relationships. You have a “page” with your photos, basic information, and so forth and then use the site’s given interface to interact whether that is posting on a Facebook wall, tweeting at your acquaintance's Twitter handle, or having a direct Facebook Messenger chat to delve deeper. Now compare that experience, that we somewhat take for granted, to the relationship-building in Her. It is not overly different. As far as robotics, the world in 2014 has drones, vacuum-cleaners, warehouse workers, and many other menial tasks targeted (the first category is not at all menial as it is controversial). We have also seen some rather scary four-legged pack bots that can run a little too quickly for comfort, thanks to Boston Dynamics and it’s “sugar daddy”, Google. Even Atlas with its limited abilities is still a little disconcerting. Maybe, it is our seemingly inherent fear of the “ghost in the machine”, that these robots will evolve to dominate as I mentioned in the third paragraph. For I, Robot, the invisible danger is well masked by polished metal and bright white surfaces, elegant designs emblematic of the sanitary order or Apple and the Bauhaus school’s legacy. Her, a statement in near-perfect minimalism crafted from decades of inspiration, designed to blend into a societal, artistic trend of clean lines and flat imagery. While Her is a benevolent experience a its core, the coming soon, Johnny Depp feature Transcedence will show us the horror that will come from combining intelligent AI with the human conscious (I know nothing more and do not wish to speculate). Regardless, our world has reached a point where a good amount past's radical designs and concepts of the future have been realized or are in progress. A computer small enough to fit in your pocket? Check.