Chilling look at the push for progress
Exhibition The Future Starts Here V&A
What will the future look like? After visiting the V&A’S latest exhibition, The Future Starts Here, which sets out to explore how design is “shaping the world of tomorrow”, I can tell you: sinister, that’s what.
The show packs in 112 objects, products and “projects”, including solar-powered shirts that can charge a smartphone, and driverless cars – which, by my reckoning, have been a staple of crystal-ball-gazing exhibitions for years, even though engineers have yet to guarantee their safety.
High above everything, though, is a drone currently being developed by Facebook, swooping among the rafters like a sort of dark, giant bat.
It’s called “Aquila” (Latin for eagle), which sounds noble, but also carries scary imperialistic associations. This feels appropriate, since Aquila, which has a 140ft wingspan (comparable to that of a Boeing 737 and making it the largest object ever installed inside the V&A), is designed to glide around at an altitude of 60,000ft, beaming down invisible laser beams to enhance internet connectivity.
At least, that’s what Facebook says. But, in the wake of the Cambridge Analytica data scandal, who knows? I’m no tech-head, or anti-corporate anarchist, but even I can see that Aquila has the potential to be an Orwellian surveillance tool.
It is far from the only exhibit with potentially menacing implications. Rather, it stands as an emblem for the darker trends predicted by the show. Anyone visiting the V&A with wideeyed excitement about the future, of the sort that used to animate, say, The Jetsons or Tomorrow’s World, risks leaving disillusioned, even chilled.
Yes, there is plenty to marvel at. These range from the seemingly banal – a large red robot with pincers that can sort and fold laundry – to the extraordinary, and potentially planetsaving: inventor Julian Melchiorri’s artificial photosynthetic leaf, created from silk protein, which can absorb carbon dioxide and produce oxygen – and could prove vital in the race to decelerate climate change.
Throughout, though, anxieties generated by the Digital Revolution remain omnipresent. In a section devoted to “smart” objects for the home, for instance, we see a photograph of a couple staring at screens while lying side-by-side in bed – gripped by technology, but disengaged. Sadly, this narrative of alienation is already familiar.
Then there is the American private company, funded by the US Department of Defense, which can predict a person’s appearance from their DNA – something that criminal investigators are latching on to with gusto, even though the results aren’t always accurate. Later, we encounter a model of a vast nuclear storage facility with 37 miles of underground tunnels, currently being constructed in Finland. The plan is to bury waste there securely for up to 100,000 years. But who’s to say where civilisation will be in a thousand years, let alone 100,000?
The show begins with a quote by the French cultural theorist and philosopher Paul Virilio, reminding us that the invention of the ship was also the invention of the shipwreck. The final section juxtaposes a display about cryonics (humanity’s bid for immortality) with information on the Svalbard Vault, situated in a Norwegian archipelago, where the world’s seeds are preserved to ensure humanity’s survival in the event of planetary catastrophe.
Ultimately, this is the show’s sobering message: that technological “progress” may unwittingly increase the likelihood of collective selfdestruction. That will certainly give me pause for thought, next time I find myself lusting after the latest gadget.
From May 12 until Nov 4. Details: 020 7942 2000