Pop Culture and the Space Age

Today's New York Times has a very interesting piece about the effect of the Space Age on popular culture.

An effect was much more than simply a spillover from the silvery streamlining of the space program. It was an increasing preoccupation with the future and technology that helped change not only the country’s look in the 1950s and ’60s, but also, in some ways, its very conception of itself, as if seen anew from space.

The architect Buckminster Fuller, one of the space age’s most ardent proselytizers, put it much more coherently in his book “Operating Manual for Spaceship Earth”: “We are all astronauts.”

See also:
Outer Space Furniture (1964)
Sincerity and the Paleo-Future
Is Futurism Dead? (New York Times, 1982)

Disney Calls Future a Thing of the Past (1997)

As I've argued before 1997 can be seen as the year that postmodern paleo-futurism went mainstream. Disney's self-aware redesign of Tomorrowland meant that mainstream American culture was out of ideas for the future.

It was as though the people at Disney were throwing up their hands and saying, "The year 2000 is just around the corner! Without flying cars we've got nothing! Check your parent's attic, there must be something cool up there!"

The most sincere and sentimental company in America had decided to simply co-opt past visions of the future.

The excerpt below is taken from a February 23, 1997 New York Times article that sums up the Tomorrowland redesign and what it meant for futurism.

''The new Tomorrowland begins with Jules Verne and ends with Buck Rogers,'' said Beth Dunlop, a Florida architecture critic who recently released a company-approved book on Disney architecture.

Tomorrowland is hardly alone. The future is growing old all over Disney's magic kingdom. From the film lot to the Epcot theme park to the real-life town that the company calls Celebration, Disney has largely given up on imagining a new future. When a story line or ride design calls for a touch of times to come, it is usually, as posters for the new Tomorrowland boast, ''the future that never was.''

The shift is profound for a company whose founder was one of postwar America's great popularizers of technology. And it is a reflection of the ennui that many Americans, at century's end, feel about the chips and bits in which they are immersed.

''We went to the Moon and all we got out of it was Teflon pans,'' said Karal Ann Marling, a professor of art history and American studies at the University of Minnesota, expressing an increasingly common attitude.

''Our goals as a people are not these pie-in-the-sky objectives that people grew up with in the 50's,'' said Professor Marling, who is the curator for a Montreal exhibit in June on Disney theme park architecture. ''They settle now for a house in the suburbs and to hell with the Moon. What's the point of building monorails if we can hardly get the car to work?''

See also:
Postmodern Paleo-Future
Article for MungBeing

In a Cashless Future, Robots Will Cook (1996)

The January 24, 1996 New York Times ran an article titled, "In A Cashless Future, Robots Will Cook." An excerpt appears below. You can read the entire article here.

It's a typical day in the year 2006. After a hectic afternoon of negotiating contracts with business partners in Hong Kong, London, Moscow and the Bronx, you step from your office and into your kitchen. What's for lunch? You press a hand on your personal diagnostic machine, and quicker then you can say Michael Jackson does Sinatra, the unit checks your blood pressure, cholesterol and weight-fat ratio and reads out your nutritional requirements. Up pops suggested menus.

Kitchen robots quietly go to work moving ingredients from a "smart" refrigerator that is built into a microwave oven. A minute later, out rolls a garden salad with dill dressing and an open-face pork-roast sandwich on wheat -- no crust. After lunch, you return to your home office to finish some business in South Africa. If you're done early, maybe you can squeeze in a movie: "Gone With the Wind" you reconfigured with Bruce Willis as Rhett Butler.

For much of human history, talk of the future was relegated to the musings of self-described prophets, astrologers, dreamers and fools. But as the world lurches toward the 21st century, futurism is being taken more seriously by more people. Experts of all stripes are studying the patterns of the past and present, trying to project tomorrow. Forecasts of what might be spill out of corporate boardrooms, government offices, magazine stands, talk shows and bookstores like a bubbly brew.

See also:
1999 A.D. (1967)
Call a Serviceman (Chicago Tribune, 1959)
Something must be wrong with its radar eye! (Chicago Tribune, 1959)
The Electronic Brain Made Beef Stew (1959)
Monsanto House of the Future (1957-1967)

Memory of 'Tomorrow' (New York Times, 1941)

Fanciful visions of the future were few and far between in the early 1940s. This article by Sidney M. Shalett, from the April 27, 1941 New York Times sums up why.

It was on a Sunday morning - the last Sunday in April - two years ago when the great World's Fair opened: April 30, 1939. In cold print the date does not seem so remote, but in two short years the rush of history, with its swift, terrible violence, has turned that brave, new World of Tomorrow into an almost forgotten legend of yesterday.

Shalett goes on to explain the sense of wonder surrounding the Futurama exhibit and the speech by President Roosevelt, officially declaring the Fair open.

Two years have passed. Vanished into limbo are the hectic days of 1939 and 1940. What history has done to the memory of the Fair the wrecking crews have done to the physical structure of the once-enchanted acres. Like the dinosaur, the Fair had to go, but maybe it shouldn't have gone so quickly. Today it is almost all gone: an empty, sad shell by day; an unbearably lonely graveyard by night.

The author ends the piece on a note of hope.

Too many memories! It is best to leave this place for a while. It will be better to return in July. Then the first units of the great Flushing Meadow Park that is to rise on the site of the Fair will be ready. Perhaps there is symbolism in that, too. Out of the wreckage of yesterday's dream of the World of Tomorrow a place of recreation, rest and beauty is being fashioned for today.


The caption to the image reads:
Where on April 30, 1939, throngs gathered "for peace and freedom," the wrecker is today finishing his work, clearing the way for a park of tomorrow.

See also:
All's Fair at the Fair (1938)

Is Futurism Dead? (New York Times, 1982)

As a follow-up to yesterday's post about the postmodern paleo-future here's an excerpt from the March 14, 1982 New York Times article, "Now and Then, Congress Also Ponders the Future."

....activity in the field [of futurism] has slowed to the point of stopping. "Actually, [futurism] died somewhere in the 1970's," said Michael Marien, the editor of "Futures Survey," a monthly abstract published by the World Future Society. "Nobody announced its death, but it happened." Mr. Marien, who has been monitoring futures literature for the past dozen years, said the flood of books on trends and forecasts is down to a trickle.

If you have a TimeSelect subscription you can read the entire article here.

See also:
Postmodern Paleo-Future

Feminine Beauty (New York Times, 1909)

"Most interesting of [Jules Bois's] predictions, perhaps, is that the present ideal of feminine beauty will have ceased to be held by the majority of the Caucasian race. Physical weakness, extreme delicacy of physiognomy, and acquiescence in a mere secondary position in the social organization will have given palce to a type in which beauty and muscular development will be combined."

"Strange to say, the Paris press has not yet pointed its arrows of ridicule at the prophet. Perhaps it is because the average Frenchman has no deep-seated objection to woman doing a large share of the world's work, such as the American man appears to have."

If you have a TimeSelect subscription you can read the entire article here.

See also:
A Hundred Years From Now. (New York Times, 1909) 14 March 2007

Jet Flying Belt is Devised to Carry Man for Miles (New York Times, 1968)

The New York Times article from 1968 titled, "Jet Flying Belt is Devised to Carry Man for Miles," describes the device pictured above as a Buck Rogers flying belt. Oh, how close to the future New York Times readers must have felt on June 28, 1968. Little did they realize that jetpacks would be relegated to the paleo-future.

"....the police might use the belts for riot control, for setting up roadblocks in a hurry, for inspecting rooftops for snipers, burglars or others escaping from the scene of a crime."

If you have a TimeSelect subscription you can read the entire article here.

See also:
Jet Pack Video (1966) 21 Feb 2007

A Hundred Years From Now. (New York Times, 1909)

"Mr. Bois believes that motor cars will in a hundred years be things of the past, and that a kind of flying bicycle will have been invented which will enable everybody to traverse the air at will, far from the earth. Pneumatic railways and flying cars and many other means of quick transit will be so developed that the question of time will enter but little into one's choice of a home."

If you have a TimeSelect subscription you can read the entire article here.

See also:
The Future World of Transportation 13 Feb 2007

Westcot (1991)

In 1991 the Walt Disney Company announced plans for a 470-acre expansion of its presence in California. This expansion was to include an "EPCOT West" or Westcot. The proposal is interesting if only for its ambition. Westcot was to be a "World's fair-type attraction in Anaheim," with the featured attraction being a 300-foot-tall Spacestation Earth, modeled after the 180-foot-tall Spaceship Earth in Florida's Epcot Center.

According to a New York Times article from December 13, 1991:

"The heart of the new resort will be Westcot, with Spacestation Earth at its center and, fanning outward, pavilions named the Wonders of Living, the Wonders of Earth and the Wonders of Space, along with cultural exhibits. 'Westcot is expected to draw 10 million visitors in its first year,' said Kerry Hunnewell, vice president for the Anaheim Project."

According to the New York Times, the head of the Westcot project resigned in December of 1993 without any reason given.

Many Disney-related blogs including Jim Hill Media, 2719 Hyperion, and Mickey News have covered this story if you're looking for more information.

See also:
EPCOT's Horizons 19 Feb 2007
The Simpson's go to EPCOT 14 Feb 2007
Astuter Computer Revue 8 Feb 2007

The Future of Leisure That Never Arrived (New York Times, 2007)

In yesterday's article by Hal R. Varian, (a professor of business, economics, and information at UC-Berkeley), we see that over the last 100 years, society has been convinced technological and social progress would bring about vast amounts of leisure time.

"When you account for the much longer time in school, the more or less constant amount of time spent on housework, and make a few other adjustments, hours spent on purely enjoyable activities haven’t changed that much in the last century. Keynes may have been right that future generations will have a lot of time on their hands, but I wouldn’t bet on that happening anytime soon."

See also:
What to do with all this leisure time? (1966) 22 Feb 2007

Face-to-Face Telephones on the Way (New York Times, 1968)

This New York Times article from 1968 quotes the chairman of AT&T and his expectations about the future of Picturephones.

"'I think for example that Picturephone service will be in very considerable use within less than ten years,' Mr. Romnes said. 'By this I mean person-to-person connections, over a switched network and similar connections between people and computers, with the output of the computers shown on the Picturephone screen.'"

Picture-phones have been the promise of many generations now. (As we saw with the 1993 AT&T ads from last week.) When it really comes down to it, will the picture-phone ever seem practical given our mobile lifestyles? Is it time to put the picturephone in the permanent collection of the Paleo-Future Museum?

If you have a TimesSelect subscription you can read the entire article here.

A Glimpse of the Year 2000 (New York Times, 1982)

"'You will definitely see this returning to a more human scale society,' said Hazel Henderson, a freelance futurist, from her post in Gainesville, Fla. 'It will be more effecient [to] do things locally. It won't make sense to buy Wonder Bread baked in Illinois'"

That prediction couldn't have been more wrong. Today our food travels further than ever.

If you have a TimesSelect subscription you can read the entire article here.

Machines! Machines! (New York Times, 1927)

I recently found a New York Times article with the headline, "Machines, Machines! The Futurist's Cry!" from December 11, 1927.

The article quotes Signor Azari as saying, "[In the future] ....our food will have to be mainly synthetic and artificial - machine-made. The cities of the future will contain no useless garbage of trees and flowers or loathsome promiscuity of animals, but geometrical buildings in glass and armed cement. Above all, there will be machines, machines, machines!"

It is difficult to imagine the world of 1927, when there was considerable awe in witnessing simple tasks being performed by machines. The technology we take for granted in 2007 were the magical fantasies of 1927.

The article contends, "'Open Sesame' used to be a term belonging to magic: The masters of a machine age are robbing the fairy tale of its ancient glamour. Once it took a magician of considerable ability to lure obedience from things inanimate."

There seemed to be a very real fear that people's jobs were at stake:
"Machines....machines...machines. Two and two into the Ark of the modern world they come: Monsters that almost of themselves turn out the product of a great factory....."

Yet, there was an odd sense of optimism that machines could help the average worker:
"...by means of cunning mechanisms of many sorts we are everywhere freeing men's hands from the bondage of labor; causing to straighten the backs that are bent in toil."

If you have a TimesSelect subscription you can read the entire article.