Last night I started watching The Matrix for the umpth time, and was struck by the colours of its future: grey, black, and green--just like the computers of the late eighties (grey steel cases and green screens) and early nineties (black plastic cases and grey screens). The new Star Trek's future, of course, is blue and white, like an oughties Apple store. (True cultural zeitgeist or very sophisticated product placement? I don't know.)
A few years before The Matrix was released I wrote an essay, "Layered Cities."
Fiction generally embodies that which a culture knows to be true. In the thirties and forties, American writers knew that the world was getting bigger, brighter, and more reasonable. There was new class mobility, the Depression was over, and a world government of rational, impartial scientists would soon be completely in charge. Future cities imagined in these times, then, were utopic visions of science-based meritocracies: well-fed white people bustling across clean-looking pastel-colored sky bridges with their slide rules sticking out of their pockets.
By the eighties, on the other hand, writers knew everything was falling apart. The economy was fueled by junk bonds and the government was going broke; more and more people were out of work; and homelessness was the new epidemic. More recently imagined Cities of the Future are in decline: rain-wet streets are neon-streaked and full of piles of dirty clothes that turn out to be brain-burned refugees from various corporate wars...
This week, I'm writing the first science fiction story I've tried in years. It's not set in the future. It's not about outer space or computer space, it's about inner space: perception and emotion. Specifically, it's about love: what is it, and how do we know it's real? When we're in love, our executive decision-making centres becomes subordinate to the hormone tide; we flow through our lives on an intuitive tide, knowing all will be well. It got me wondering if--perhaps in some future novel--I could use falling in love as a metaphor for public and civic trust.
When a country is at war (or at bay, economically), does the body politic and its irrational fears/hopes overwhelm the executive decision-making centre? If that's the case, should we trust the government?
Eh, but I'm just playing. Here's my real question for you: what will the next future look like on screen? A Kindle (16 shades of grey)? Twitter (turquoise)? Blogger (orange)? Tell me what you think.
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Primary colors. Everything seems to be marketing driven and these colors draw the eyes like a shiny bit attracts a crow.
ReplyDeleteI think the future is going to be coloured in natural tones - moss, grass, earth, trees that sort of thing. One of those futures where we life is a mixture of technology and nature. The home garden is monitored by a talking, bordering on self aware, wall PC.
ReplyDeleteThat's a fascinating question. Mayhap blood red against a black and white landscape. Something shocking, jarring, bound to rouse a sleeping collective unconscious.
ReplyDeleteFirst off-- your story sounds like a post-human love story. You said sci-fi, that is my guess.
ReplyDeleteI think kindle/twitter/blogger are all still over-shadowed by the iFuture, right now. So we've got to think past that. Huh.
I've always liked the Imperator role for an executive branch (not the American executive system...too crypto-monarchist for me-- lets talk about the King's wife's gowns & his new hound!) That is, someone(s) who are "turned on" when war happens, to make the split second decisions, then turned off when the war is over. Obviously there are some problems (I'm looking at you Gaius Julius Ceasar!)
Okay, back to the future. We've had the cultural collapse, we're seeing fossil fuels die out. What I expect the future to focus on is the universal access to technology & the fear of distribution. I think we can expect to see lower class people with high class weapons. Not just vaguely ethnic terrorists with homemade suitcase nukes (but them too, yeah) but homeless people with beaten up lap tops they use to break in to NASA or teenage punks sending text messages to arrange global money laundering, grannies with mecha exoskeletons. Like the 80's Macguffin that a computer could do ANYTHING (like, zap you inside of it, or make "the perfect woman") but in the hands of "someone you wouldn't expect."
I like Jennifer's answer, too-- all monochrome except for a cursor's splash of colour.
ReplyDeleteIt will be the colour you choose to see; if you're predisposed to the green and blacks, you'll have a Matrix future. If, on the other hand, you're more likely to notice the blues and the whites, you'll have a Star Trek future. Personal context shapes everything, especially the way we see things.
ReplyDeleteI think we'll have the technological ability to see everything in whatever shade we want. I just wrote a futuristic in which everything, even one of the character's eyes, is swirly psychodelic 60s colors. Actually, his eyes are chameleon and reflect the background all the time. But that's what the background is. I chose it because of the musical slant of the piece--60s and 70s free love and all that.
ReplyDeleteSadly, I suspect the future will look much like today -- only more so -- and not a flying car in sight.
ReplyDeleteWill colors be dictated by technology or by people? Is there an ergonomics of color? Supposedly, certain colors encourage certain moods and emotions, like blue is supposed to make people feel calm. I'm enough of an old hippie to believe that if we love each other, our colors will blend. I can never quite loose that idaelism.
ReplyDeleteBeing mostly colour-blind, my visions of futures and cities tend to be rhythm-based. As always, playing in my own little world, seeing things out of the corner of my eye.
ReplyDeleteI think it (the future) could go either way - good or horrible. If it goes badly, then I'd say grunge/dark/bland colors - sorta like BSG. If things go ok, then more of the primary/secondary color splash w/emphasis on using colors to influence emotions. If all our problems get straightened out (seems unlikely), then the more soothing earth tones and other soothing and pleasing colors like blue and yellow. The white and blue of Star Trek seems so good and clean to me. I don't expect that to happen.
ReplyDeleteAnd as for how do we know when love is real? Sounds like an interesting story.
I used to think I knew without a doubt when it was real/not real, but that was in my younger days. I believed that if it were real, it was reciprocated. Sort of like the sound of one hand clapping, or a tree falling in the woods with no one there to hear. Hence if someone said they loved me, and I knew I didn't love them back, I figured what they were experiencing wasn't real love - more like some kind of crush. And in my arrogance, I thought when I loved someone deeply, they must really love me back - even if they said otherwise.... Yeah, I know.
These days, I see the really deep kind of love as something more rare than I did back then. And I know it's not always a two way street. And I've thought (I was Certain) I loved someone who turned out to be someone other than I thought she was - someone other than the person I thought I loved. When I got to know her truly, I realized I couldn't love her (but I could still lust for her). So, I think that you know for sure the love is real when you really know that person. But I don't know, it always feels so fucking real. And if it feels that way, then maybe it is real -- if only for a time.
And don't say you can never really know another person.
Amen!
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