PNE exhibit looks at the future through the lens of the past
In 1964, when author Arthur C. Clarke was asked on BBC to predict the future, he said “when that time comes, the whole world will have shrunk to a point ... In fact, men will no longer commute. They will communicate.”
That, in turn, has been made possible by the internet. It’s one of many cases were science fiction has turned into reality, explained Troy Carlson.
As the CEO of Stage Nine Exhibitions, Carlson is behind the PNE’s latest exhibit, POPnology — one that looks at how books, movies, art and TV have influenced technology.
“In a sense they were forecasting 20, 30 years ahead,” Carlson said. “There were animations in the ’50s about what autonomous cars would be like. Today those are being developed. We have some great videos in the exhibit showing that and looking back.”
The exhibit will be showcased in Vancouver for the first time since launching a North American tour three years ago. This year’s display falls on the 50th anniversary of the release of the film 2001: A Space Odyssey.
“When that movie came out in 1968, the whole idea of artificial intelligence was this wholly new idea and seemed so grandiose,” Carlson said. “But now people have a Siri or Alexa, obviously not to that level, but there’s the beginnings of voice recognition and thinking computers in the hands of everyone.”
The exhibition will be split into four distinct areas: ‘How We Play ’, which looks at things like video games, ‘How We Connect’, the evolution of communication, ‘How We Move’, the history of transportation, and ‘How We Live and Work’, showcasing the inventions that we might take for granted in our everyday lives.
Carlson said that all those aspects are changing significantly as “things move faster and faster.”
He personally remembers the excitement of purchasing a subscription for Encyclopedia Britannica as a child.
“Having all that knowledge in the house was exciting. But who gets that now? You Google it,” he said.
“We have a room that showcases just that. It shows everything that is now obsolete, because our smart phone can do it.”
The room includes an audio walk-through that details the process of doing ordinary things like renting a video or ordering flowers for a birthday, in the absence of today’s technology.
Carlson hopes that the exhibit can strike everyone’s curiosity on the way out.
“We want people to leave and think ‘what if ’ towards things that are science fiction today, which could be fact tomorrow.”