Echoes of the Future

Flying cars, humanoid robots or life on alien planets. Such visions of the future were shaped by science fiction films in our childhood. However, reality is quite different, and our future may seem dystopian in light of current crises. Can we imagine a better alternative?

Mark Fisher famously coined the phrase “slow cancellation of the future”, which describes the feeling that once-exciting visions of a better and radically different tomorrow are slowly fading into a recycled present. The future has disappeared. However, not in the sense that time has stopped. Just our ability to imagine a world different from the one we know became much more limited. This section explores current technologies and social issues through the lens of contemporary documentaries as well as science fiction films that depicted AI or space travel long before science made them possible. Let’s see what the future looked like in the past and how we envision it today and ponder together on how we can help build it ourselves.

Magdaléna Jedličková