THE FUTURE STARTS HERE at the VICTORIA & ALBERT MUSEUM


THE FUTURE STARTS HERE

At the

VICTORIA & ALBERT MUSEUM

On the

14.08.18

To anticipate the singularity, the Victoria and Albert’s new exhibition demonstrates how this present was anticipated and the inventions of today that will eventually predict the future.  The singularity, due apparently in 2070, is an event rather like the take-off into self-sustained growth envisioned by economist Gunnar Myrdal.   This is when industrialisation established its own internal dynamic at the time of the industrial revolution allowing development to happen but this time our computers will replicate autonomously, without our consent, and be able to re-configure themselves at will.  Gordon Moore of INTEL has predicted that our computers will double their processing powers every 18 months, but the singularity goes beyond even this prediction. 

Artificial Intelligence or AI is, however, still in its infancy as demonstrated by IBM’s attempt to replicate consciousness in 2009.  The result was a brain with the cognitive power of a small fish which may or may not be hailed as an evolutionary advance putting our strivings towards Promethean intervention in our own evolutionary course into perspective.  The Victoria & Albert shows us some of the machines which are making our homes “smart” but also “stupid” since they also happen to be susceptible to hacking.  One example of AI at the V & A is BRETT (Berkeley Robot for the Elimination of Tedious Tasks, University of California, Berkeley 2010 - ongoing.  Rll.berkeley.edu/va).  Brett struggles with the laundry, an elementary task for us because it presents levels of unpredictability such as the differing weight and shape of laundry which are not present in tightly structured environments like factories. 
The exhibition posits rhetorical questions “What makes us human?” (we can do the laundry…) and “We are all connected but do we feel lonely?” (yes, and the internet deepens our isolation).  Brett really is stupid but that does not mean that future Brett’s will not be better adapted to our common sense.

The introduction of genetically modified salmon and genetic profiling led to debateable attempts to re-create identity using even tiny amounts of DNA found at crime scenes.  This has led to debates about the gender and race prejudice revealed by such profiling.  When Bradley/Chelsea Manning was in gaol, the only known representations of her/him were casts built out of his/her DNA.  The human genome project has given us home DNA kits such as the Home DNA Lab built by Bento Bio in 2016. (www.bento.bio).  It’s possible to test yourself for lactose intolerance or identify genetically modified organisms in your food and the MinION built by Oxford Nanopore Technologies in 2018 which is a DNA sequencer which can read the genetic code of any living organism.  It sequences simple genomes like bacteria and viruses in a matter of seconds and has even sequenced and assembled the entire human genome for the first time. (www.nanoporetech.com)

Space Age ready to drink meals are also presented to us and a sampler which tasted rather like chocolate milk shake.  The 14oz Soylent Drink (a title perhaps offering a sly wink to cult sci-fi film Soylent Green starring Charlton Heston in which dead bodies provide nutritious meals for earth’s ever-growing population in a dystopian future…) made by Rosa Foods, Inc. in 2015.  The product, we are told, contains polyethylene, terephthalate bottle, filtered water, soy protein isolate and amongst many other unknown yet potentially yummy chemicals.  At the bottom of the bottle we are asked rhetorically “Love Soylent? Text (312) 487-3663.”  Perhaps an unending reel of Charlton Heston dialoguing with Edward G. Robinson (his last film) is revealed or Heston’s final mantra “Soylent Green is people.”  Produced with genetic engineering, we are told (soylent.com).

“If Mars is the answer, what is the question?” reveals a portable cryogenic kit which will keep a candidate for cryogenic freezing alive until their final immersion in a deep freeze, the 1000 books that must be kept and read if civilisation is to persist (I couldn’t see The Bible, Ulysses or Das Kapital but there were books by Isaac Asimov, Phillip K Dick and J.G.Ballard and a tome on wild mushrooms, very useful for anyone stuck out on Mars!) and Space X’s re-usable rockets.  The portable cryogenic kit is an apparatus that evokes faint curiosity and disgust and the question presented: “Who wants to live forever?”  One practical solution is found in Svalbard in the Arctic Circle where seeds from our important food crops are stored cryogenically for the day when nuclear war or a similar catastrophe brings this modern Ark into operation.  Some of the seeds from Svalbard contained in re-sealable plastic packets, are on show here.

“Does Democracy still Work?” presents a sequence of imaginings and re-imaginings of the modern city including a 13-year-old Syrian boy from Damascus and his paper cut and paste re-imagining of a future Damascus.  Edward Snowden is compared to the Suffragettes and a toy panda made by the Chinese artist Ai Wei Wei, apparently a replica of the toy containing the USB stick that produced Wikileaks (although the film Snowden depicts him smuggling it out in a Rubick’s cube perhaps to offer Snowden a defining and defiant intellectualism.)  The mining of Bitcoins is explained, and an operational computer gadget Bitcoin miner is on show.  We are told that the transactions are transparent even if Bitcoins only exist online and are not created/minted by a State.  For obvious reasons the Bitcoins are mainly being spent on the Dark Web.  The owners of these mining gadgets programme them to solve complex mathematical problems in exchange for Bitcoins.

Drones, online demonstrations against robotic armies, an unmanned underwater mapping device are debated and presented as futuristic gadgets, but the truth is that these inventions are already with us.  The only thing we are not sure of is the extent of their uses.  The truth is that the surface of Mars is better mapped than the depths of our oceans.  The new smart technologies are reaching out towards the edges of our perception of the universe but also offer new altered perspectives of ourselves.  The vulnerability and fragility of the technology we have is also a dominant theme of this exhibition which also happens to be cheerfully interactive.  We are invited to launch an environmental balloon by pedalling a (rather old-fashioned technology) bicycle and we can also drink a cup of Soylent’s ever ready meal which might also help to prolong our visit.

Paul Murphy, Victoria & Albert Museum, August 2018

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