Letters to 2120

Dear 2120,

What’s good, is everything okay? To be honest, I’m starting to get a little worried. Things are looking fairly dire here at the beginning of 2020 with the oceans heating up, Australia still being on fire, and the recent announcement that we just came out of the hottest decade on record. At this moment in time, the future we’re creating looks increasingly Hadean as the global newsfeed recovers from the imagery of flourishing Antipodean ecosystems transformed into morbid fiery hellscapes. There are times when I wonder if we took a wrong turn somewhere and ended up in a shitty alternative universe.   

This is not a drill

That being said, It looks like we’ve finally woken up to the alarming prospects of climate breakdown. People are out in the streets protesting, fuelled by righteous rage. More specifically, they’re getting themselves arrested in the world’s major cities,  guided by the bright neon placards and uncompromisingly punchy rhetoric of a group of decentralized eco-activists who call themselves Extinction Rebellion. I bought their book ‘This is not a drill – An Extinction Rebellion Handbook’, and I thought you’d like to hear what this era-defining organization has to say about the escalating predicament we find ourselves sinking deeper and deeper into as the days go by. Unsurprisingly, it makes for very intense reading. 

           
Courageous constipation

Featuring essays by climate scientists, firefighters, ex- drugs cops, conscientious lawyers, former admen, righteous arrestees, humanistic advisors to tech-billionaires, and a range of other agreeing, occasionally dissenting voices, ‘This is Not a Drill’ is a visceral literary slap in the face that leaves you reeling with feeling. In other words, it really messes with your head. Needless to say, reading about human extinction scenarios – written by people who actually did legit research on the topic – will never be a comfortable undertaking. Then again, the aims of Extinction Rebellion are anything but leisurely. They’re here to shock a failing system into action, and onto a regenerative, sustainable path. 

Judging by recent efforts, that strategy is working. Using ‘direct, non-violent action’ as their central tool against political inaction, the organization blocks the traffic flow of cities all over the world to get their message heard by politicians, the public and the media while making mass-mobilizing headlines and pissing of willfully ignorant pundits in the process. There’s no getting around the fact that Extinction Rebellion is an idealistic, tree-hugging force to be reckoned with. An unrelenting, courageous constipation in the digestive system of the exploitative, extractive capitalism, which is fast-tracking us towards ecocide and civilizational collapse. They’ve got some great slogans, too:    

Tell the Truth and Act Now 

The book is divided into two main parts: ‘Tell the Truth’ and ‘Act Now.’ The foreword is written by Extinction Rebellion-academic, Vandana Shiva, and the co-editor of the book, Sam Knights, with the latter chronicling ‘the story so far’, including the humble beginnings in ‘a small English town.’ The introductory segment also provides details of how the founding principles and current organizational structure came to be by drawing on the successes of the big civil rights movements in our immediate past.      

With passionate essays than run the gamut from despair-inducing to enlightening, ‘Part 1:Tell the Truth’ takes Al Gore´s ‘An Inconvenient Truth’ and raises the stakes by several dying coral reefs to offer a new and different kind of truth with implications far gorier than anything the stocky, waspy millionaire has ever been able to muster: Indigenous people tell us that the mountains are melting. Douglas Rushkoff describes how Silicon Valley billionaires are mainly concerned with keeping the guards to their swanky survivalist bunkers from rebelling against them after the end of the world has happened (yes, really). Former undercover drugs cops draw insightful, forward-thinking parallels between drug addiction and fossil fuel dependency, laying out a plan for harm-reduction on a macroscale.  At the most downcast and depressing end of the spectrum, a harrowing doomsday prophesy, subscribing to the Jonathan Franzian view that we might as well just come to terms with an imminent Armageddon, leaps from the page like little, soul-sucking apocalypse goblins, and make you feel like running for the green, temperate hills. 

Time to rebel

If part 1 is the rude awakening that hits the gravity of the situation home with the rhetorical equivalent of a spiked baseball bat, part 2 is about the steps we can take, locally and globally, to prevent a planet-wide catastrophe. Kicking things off with the apt Frederick Douglas quote: ‘Power concedes nothing without a demand and it never will’, the second part of  ‘This Is Not A Drill – An Extinction Rebellion Handbook’ gets down to the nitty-gritty of activism with hands-on practical instructions as you how you become an Extinction Rebellion rebel. Thrown into the idealistic mix are tips on the best way to get arrested; Extinction Rebellion-founder Roger Hallam explaining the benefits of the civil resistance model; a formula for building an action (featuring 3 steps: disruption, outreach, and visioning), and arts and craft pointers to creating your own posters and other attention-grabbing XR paraphernalia. We also get a fascinating peek into the Extinction Rebellion media strategy, which has brought about a finely tuned messaging machine that consistently makes all the right moves by reading the zeitgeist and communicating the same powerful message over and over: It’s time to rebel. Minor flukes notwithstanding, it’s extremely impressive what this decentralized organization has managed to achieve within the space of around 3 years or so.      

Economic rebellion

In one of its most constructive and visionary moments, the second part of the handbook offers an uplifting proposition for a new economic model with the statement: ‘…such extreme inequality is neither inevitable nor immutable. It is an economic design failure.’ It made me think of the famed Ursula K. Leguin quote: 

‘We live in capitalism. Its power seems inescapable. So did the divine right of kings. Any human power can be resisted and changed by human beings.’

The essay, written by economist Kate Raworth, the author of ‘Doughnut Economics’, outlines how we can move from the broken, centralized economic model, currently exploiting and depleting our ecological infrastructure, to designing a system, which is far more distributive. According to Raworth, this will lead to renewable modes of energy production with the final aim of establishing and maintaining regenerative societies. With unswerving clarity, it problematizes mainstream economy’s fixation on an endless growth curve, contrasting it with what she calls ‘Nature’s Growth Curve’ while calling for the urgent transformation of the extractive economy.

A lot of these points grow out of common sense. For example, you can’t have infinite growth on a planet with finite resources. But Raworth frames her central contention with an optimistic, intellectual heft that breathes new life into well-worn thinking. It makes you think that everything might turn out alright after all if we manage to steer the ship away from choppy waters and capitalist siren-singing laced with death. Moving from ‘me’ to ‘we’ rarely ever sounded so appealing.   

Critique: where’s the future? 

If you’ve read any of my previous letters, you’ll know that Letters to 2120 is, by-and-large, dedicated to furthering common, constructive optimism in the face of all-consuming cynicism also known as Capitalist Realism. In light of that, it goes without saying that some of the overwhelmingly pessimistic pieces in ‘This Is Not A Drill – An Extinction Rebellion Handbook’ were hard for me to swallow.

One thing that struck me a few times when I read this book is that it’s mainly preoccupied with the here and now. Outside of the grim apocalyptic scenarios, it concerns itself with prevention in the present. When you take a hard look at the frustrating lack of political action on climate change, that seems like a perfectly reasonable response. However, given that I’m the type of person who’s prone to bouts of emotional pontification, predominantly in the form of sci-fi extrapolations and futuristic vistas, I’d personally love to see a more elaborate, inspiring vision of the future from Extinction Rebellion. In my opinion, that’s also the most effective way of persuading people to buy into your message. Having a clear and compelling idea of where we should go and, crucially, what that journey looks and feels like, is an approach that very few eco-activists have tried their hand at. As Katherine Wilkinson, the senior writer at the brilliant Project Drawdown puts it:

‘We need to have a vision for the future beyond averting catastrophe. The most vital climate solution is our capacity to hold a vision of what’s possible – for our species, society, and world’      

The dangers in the visionary approach are many. If Extinction Rebellion were to lay out a comprehensive plan for a future society in stirring words and images tomorrow, the backlash could be imminent. You can almost hear the hypothetical uproar from the Tory government, accusing them of disseminating communist/totalitarian/crypto-fascist propaganda or having turned into a weird and dangerous cult. Be that as it may, I suspect they might have to navigate that volatile path somewhere down the line. The thing is that apathy is a major problem in 2020. Some experts believe that this is down to the way that everything is framed in disaster. On a daily basis, we’re carpet-bombed with sensationalist, doom-laden images that more or less make positive change seem impossible. As Norwegian psychologist and economist Per Espen Stoknes points out, climate change is almost entirely framed as a looming disaster, making us deeply fearful and paralyzed. After the initial fear subsides it becomes a topic that our brain wants to avoid altogether. And because more than 80% of the media still use ‘disaster framings’ when communicating climate change, it’s gotten to a point where we all suffer from ‘apocalypse fatigue’ – as ludicrous as that might sound.  

Considering that dynamic, what we need right now are better stories. Narratives and trajectories far removed from both totalitarian propaganda and cloying, wishy-washy bullshit of the neoliberal Obama variety. By no means will that be an easy feat. The ghosts of our ideological past loom large, and it will take inordinate amounts of otherworldly creativity and dogged, unflinching belief to overcome the manifold trappings of the present, some of which we’re probably not even aware of. 

Buy it for everyone

But that was a self-indulgent little stray off-topic. The main event here is ‘This Is Not A Drill – An Extinction Rebellion Handbook’, an essential collection of essays echoing the contemporary zeitgeist. 

 

There’s a lot to get into in this incendiary, mind-altering book. My review barely scratches the surface of this potent trove of ideas and opinions. Anyone wanting to read more will have to acquire it for themselves. I can say without any kind of hesitation and pussy-footing around that it’s a veritable must-read for people who care about things. It comes with my warmest recommendations – I’m guessing you still have books in 2120. 

If you’re reading this in 2020 I suggest you get it for yourself, your friends, your mom and anyone else who might be swayed into taking action for a better planet. If you’re reading this in the future, I’m hoping that our present state of anxiety and desperation will have been consigned to the dustbin of history. That the Australian outback has been restored to a fertile wonderland abound with merry kangaroos skipping joyfully across the lush, undisturbed plains and cheerful koalas frolicking with giddy delight in in the swaying eucalyptus trees. Ultimately, my optimistic hope is that the pessimistic scenarios outlined in the first chapter of the Extinction Rebellion Handbook will seem like the melodramatic histrionics of a bygone era when the world worked itself into an international tizzy because of our transgenerational, human inclination for being obsessed with the end of the world.

This Is Not A Drill: An Extinction Rebellion Handbook is out now on Penguin.    

 

 

Dear 2120,

It’s been a minute. Two years have come and gone since my last letter to the future. I plan to send you more letters.

For now, here’s some music I listened to in the 2010s. It will all seem very quaint and naive to you, I’m sure. There’s no need to be a dick about it, though. Have a listen anyway.

Dear 2120,

As you can probably tell from my frequent posting on the matter, Blade Runner 2049 is kind of a big deal here. The legacy of the original Blade Runner from 1982 spreads far and wide, it rolls deep with die-hard fans from director Chris Cunningham to EL-P of Run the Jewels fame singing its hypnotic praises. It’s the kind of movie that inspired a lot of other movies, not to mention an astronomical amount of music, fashion and art. For better or worse, Ridley Scott’s futurist meditation on the nature of human existence has been seared into our collective consciousness. Personally, I wasn’t really sure what to expect from the Denis Villeneuve-directed follow-up. It seemed a difficult proposition for a variety of reasons.

Full disclosure: if I’m honest with myself, I was probably never a die-hard fan of the original. While I can totally appreciate its dense, melancholy atmosphere, singular vision and stunning visual innovation on a more cerebral level, I’ve always found it hard to get emotionally invested. In spite of its unquestionable strengths, it never really got me in my feels. There’s a distinct possibility that I’ve just found it hard to see past the dated bits. For some people, the wonky, early 80s kitsch is the movie’s main appeal, but for me it sometimes becomes the wayward, pointy projectile that sends the soaring Hindenburg of a movie crashing down to earth in cyberpunk-tinted flames. My ADHD-riddled internet brain probably doesn’t do me any favors when it comes to Scott’s meditative sci-fi odyssey, and I certainly can’t rule out that I’m just so used to fast-paced Netflix entertainment that its relentless dwelling on idiosyncratic detail – soundtracked by sticky synths and self-indulgent saxophone solos – is why I sometimes catch myself zoning tf out. This is a movie that’s drunk on its own imagination. It wallows in its own melancholy. That said, I do think parts of Blade Runner, like Rutger Hauer’s dying in the rain with its inspired monologue, are earth-shatteringly great.

What I’m trying to say is that my relationship with Blade Runner is fairly complex, if not a little agnostic. From my perspective, parts of Blade Runner are flat out tiresome, while others are borderline genius. In other words, Blade Runner 2049’s potential was hard to determine. It could go either way, as far as I was concerned.

For the purposes of making this review more orderly and palatable, less rambling and ranting, I’ve divided it into four segments: the soundtrack, the plot, the world-building and the politics. Let’s jump in at the deep end with the heavily contested soundtrack. Spoilers ahead!

The Soundtrack

As I mentioned, there was a bit of an uproar in Nerdland when Denis Villeneuve gave Jóhan Jóhansson the boot in favor of Blockbuster titan, Hans Zimmer. Murmurings that Denis Villeneuve was losing his neuve (lølz) flourished in many a geek-driven corner of the internet, and I can totally see where they’re coming from; with Jóhansson’s timelessly yearning, neo-classical sound, Blade Runner could potentially have followed in the footsteps of its avant-garde predecessor by turning everything on its head. By flipping off an increasingly ossified sci-fi establishment. Then again, A Blade Runner movie that completely neglects the soaring Vangelis synth, wouldn’t really feel like a Blade Runner movie. You can sense Villeneuve’s pickle.

If we start out in the nitpicking department, the main problem with Zimmer’s score is that is has the all the subtlety of being bro-slapped at a toga party. On more than one occasion, I felt compelled to grab the German composer by the scruff of the neck and tell him to cool it with those massive ‘BWAAAAH!’ sounds that he also pummelled to death in Inception. And it’s nice to be overwhelmed by an all-encompassing wall of surround sound in the cinema, but when the wall is so frequent and so loud, it kind of feels like that episode of The Simpsons where they’re making fun of surround sound ads and people’s teeth and valuables get torn off in the soundwave.

Moving on to the good parts, Hans clearly knows what he’s doing. A seasoned craftsman with a proven track record in mesmerizing the big screen sci-fi audience, his vast, immersive tones compliment, contextualize and enhance the movie’s grave, larger-than-life themes. At one point when K flies into the foreboding Wallace monolith, the ambient background noise suddenly turns into a weird, heavily processed, guttural tribal chant that manages to stay on the right side of outrageous. Strange, fucked-up, colossal buildings where they engineer human slaves necessitate strange, fucked up, unholy sounds.

As an old synth-freak I can’t help relishing the generous washes of Vangelis-indebted synth-work that Zimmer implements with knowing precision. Hovercraft ride with AI-girlfriend: Vangelis-synth. Dying in the snow for a bigger cause, which is the final proof that you’re not a ‘skin job’, but a real human being with a real soul: Vangelis-synth. It works a charm, and I wouldn’t have it any other way.

All in all, I’d say the the good outweighs the bad by a long shot. 7 out of 10 vintage Yamaha synthezisers.

The Plot

Here lies the centre of my struggle, my main gripe with 2049. I mean, I love the introductory text describing how the Tyrell Corporation had its downfall and the ecosystem collapsed making way for Wallace and his ‘mastery’ of synthesized farming. The scene is set for an epic, downcast, post-apocalyptic adventure.

But then comes Robin Wright’s lackluster claim that they need to ‘keep order’ and if they don’t – if everyone finds out about the replicant baby – civil war between humans and replicants will break out. With no tangible backstory, no discernible character motivation, to underpin this pivotal claim, the premise that the entire movie rests on becomes one person’s half-baked opinion.

It’s a bit flimsy for my tastes. And the combination of uninspired acting and sloppy screenwriting kind of kills the plot for me. Theoretically speaking, I can see how a baby born to a replicant could stoke the fires of an insurrection. The way in which this crucial plot device is delivered, however, just makes the point of no return fizzle out into mediocrity – and I find it very hard to get fully invested in what comes next. Adding to that, the completely overshadowing focus on cinematography can sometimes make it seem like you’re watching 10 different, isolated short films in succession instead of one, unified whole. The plot gives way to the visuals. Now, depending on who you ask, this is either a strength or a flaw. More on that in a second.

These are my main points of contention with 2049. In no way do they make it suck, but they don’t do it any favors either.

The World-Building

This is where Denis and crew really nail it down to a tee. 2049 is a visual cornucopia of sci-fi boner-inducing imagination. I realize that I’m contradicting myself here, but the lack of backstory and character motivation actually serves an engaging purpose in this particular respect because it pushes us straight into the vertigo-inducing action, and sort of makes us observe what these strange people who are so unlike us, but still kind of similar get up to in a fascinating, distorted reality. It becomes a window into an alternate universe that’s taken a hard turn for the worse, and its immersive properties are by turns exhilarating, enticing and deliciously melancholy. Channeling the true, maverick spirit of the original, 2049 makes few attempts to guide its audience along a traditional blockbuster narrative, opting instead to enmesh its viewers in colour, mood and atmosphere with relatively open-ended thematic conclusions.

This is one of the most visually appealing movies I’ve ever seen. If cinematography is your bag, this is your holy grail. It also sits incredibly well with the atmospheric, world-building of the original while building on and expanding its prescient ideas into the present and beyond.

The Politics

At the end of 2017, making a big budget movie can never not be politicized. Sure enough, accusations of misogyny came flying left and right when Blade Runner 2049 first premiered. I-D fired a few rounds at Villenueve, castigating the film as ‘a misogynistic mess’ saying that women in the movie are either prostitutes or ‘violent boss vomen.’ If you judge the new Bade Runner according to criteria that usually apply to contemporary movies, this is a very fair point. In that case, the portrayal of women is straight-up barbaric and very one-dimensional. In other words, most of these women make for dubious role models.

In my humble opinion, this critique is fairly short-sighted. It also kind of misses the point. First of all, this is cyberpunk. We find ourselves in a post-apocalyptic society that’s gone off the rails. It’s creative extrapolation, making us live a worst-case scenario. We have to assume, I think, that untamed capitalism, unchecked patriarchy, toxic masculinity and all the other ills of this world are factors in the precipitous descent into debasement, leaving our protagonists with the sad, broken pieces of a world in rapid decline. Or rather, the decline is over and they’ve hit rock-bottom. Their job is to navigate this hyper-oppressive dystopia where human beings are commodities, and their use-value is the only thing they have going for them. None of these people – neither the men, nor the women – are role models. They’re misguided outcomes of a society based on the every- person-for-itself- rule. I’d agree that creating a visually titillating dystopia could be construed as irresponsible, but that’s a different discussion. (Also, if you’ve read this blog, you’ll know that I’d love to see a full-on utopian movie).

But like Black Mirror, Blade Runner is, partially at least, about seeing how bad shit can really get if we don’t stop and think – if we don’t find a way to curb our most self-destructive impulses. The 2049 universe is the opposite of woke; it’s a scenario that plays out how the world might look if we don’t find some way to change. Hence, big-breasted statues of women in the abandoned, toxic desert are not reinforcing patriarchy, they’re pointing fingers at it. They’re showing us how obsolete, dehumanizing and damaging the commodification of human beings can be.

True, 2049’s themes are subtle and ambiguous. I don’t know about you, but I prefer my entertainment subtle and ambiguous to obvious and lecturing. You could argue that today’s political climate requires lecturing, but that’s another discussion for another time – and one that I’d like to keep out of a Blade Runner debate. Simply put: if you’re going to make a movie or music about how things should be with themes that should be taken literally, that’s amazing and commendable. It has nothing to do with Blade Runner, though, and from my perspective Villeneuve does a good job of orchestrating a bold, new take on the groundbreaking Blade Runner legacy.

I can see how people can get pissed off by Blade Runner 2049 (and a few of my friends actually have). Still, I find it hard to be offended by it. If anything it depresses me. It reminds me that we’re pushed with increasing speed into the totally insane task of changing the course of humanity, so we can avoid living in a real-world dystopia where brute force, dickheaded antagonism and soulless technological innovation and are the only constants in a terrifyingly chaotic universe.

To my own surprise, I’m having a hard time wrapping my head around this movie despite seeing it twice. I’d love to give you a clear-cut answer along the lines of ‘it’s really great’ or ‘it’s embarrassingly bad’, but I can only say It’s mind-blowingly great in some respects, but kinda half-assed and sophomoric in others. Which is more or less what I have to say about the original, so I guess everything is as it should be.

Interestingly, the original Blade Runner got crap reviews when it first came out in 1982. 2049 being so ahead of its time that I just don’t fully get could be within the realms of possibility. Maybe Villeneuve’s sequel will be to your generation what Fritz Lang’s ‘Metropolis’ (1910) is to us. It manages the unlikely feat of being a beautiful, depthless void favoring form over substance, as well as a deep-seated visual poem on the intersection between technology and humanity all at the same time. The fact that it can be both may be too much for my binary, early 21^st century pea brain to handle. I might even have to watch it a third time to see if I can make more sense of it all. Maybe that’s what Blade Runner is: a beautiful, confusing mess of conflicting energies.

Wherever you are, whether it’s your version of cyberspace or somewhere on an off-world colony, I sincerely hope it hasn’t aged too poorly and that you’re able to watch it without feeling embarrassed for your early 21^st century ancestors. Who will probably all be gone by the time you read this.

Like inactive Google+ accounts deleted from the internet.

 

 

 

Dear 2120,

One of my main worries about this extremely one-sided correspondence is that you’ll have no idea what the hell I’m talking about. To that end, I’ve decided to merge a contemporary, cultural phenomenon known as Game of Thrones with Special Request’s latest junglist piano house banger in the attempt to accurately convey how music can make people feel about things in 2017.

Picture the scene: you’ve been walking for ages in an unforgiving winter wasteland with only the obstinate, smart-alecky interjections of a hideously scarred, smelly sociopath called The Hound to keep you company. The quest: acquire a hissing, undead corpse for the Dragon Queen. It’s the only way she’ll ever believe there’s an army of White Walkers coming to kill life itself. Things go awry at some point and you end up in the middle of a frozen lake surrounded by a vast phalanx of hungry zombies in various stages of rot and decay. The Hound is a belligerent fuckhead, so he throws rocks at your enemy, which ends up setting everything in motion, including the patch-eyed, Lord of Light servant’s flaming sword.

Enter Special Request’s ‘Brainstorm’:

 

As the undead army approaches, you press play on your medieval/fantasy soundsystem to get pumped for battling the Night King’s army of skeletal reprobates with your boss weapon forged from newly excavated dragonstone.

 

The booming kick makes the rocky foundation you’re standing on reverberate with the golden age of rave – and you have to slap some sense into the ginger wildling to keep him from busting trippy, Fiorucci Made me Hardcore/ 90s warehouse moves. The dead-eyed freaks come at you in droves and the Kool Keith sample eggs everyone on. You’re putting up a formidable fight, swords singing and gleaming in the pale winter light, White Walker heads fly left and right. At some point, though, you run out of steam and the Walkers start eating your buddy’s face and pulling people into the lake.

But then. A soaring, HI-NRG piano riff accompanied by slaying diva vocals lights up the sky; the Dragon Queen Khaleesi has arrived on her surly dragon to save your ass and incinerate the enemy. You barely manage to hang on to the scaly beast at it leaves and in your mind’s eye you can’t help but notice how Paul Woolford’s hardcore barnstormer of a track makes the perfect soundtrack for fighting off White Walker’s with a flaming sword.

If you’re a connoisseur of popular culture in the 2010s, this will all make perfect sense. If you’re not, I suggest you start reading up on things. Some people have given up on GOT here. They don’t know what they’re missing.

‘Brainstorm’ by Special Request is out now on Houndstooth. 

Dear 2120,

I can’t speak to the newsworthiness of this in relation to people living a hundred years from now. All I know is that few sci-fi writers have managed to mess so masterfully with my head as Philip K. Dick, which makes the appearance of a trailer promoting a TV show based on a range of the volatile writer’s short stories something of an event here in my present. When the space head who dreamt up shadowy, literary masterpieces like ‘Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep’ gets his small screen debut, you can’t not post about it. At least not if you’re a nerd like me.

The trailer isn’t exactly mind-blowing, and it looks like they might have borrowed a little too heavily from Black Mirror, but I’ll reserve final judgment for when ‘Philip K. Dick’s Electric Dreams’ lands in my digital entertainment system.

Dear 2120,

Grasping the bigger, more significant perspectives of your era can sometimes be a challenge when all you have at your disposal is the sluggish, old human sensory apparatus. Our 2017 brains have limited processing capabilities, which makes it difficult to comprehend and analyze the total sum of everything that goes on around us. When you’re caught in the hurricane of all these overwhelming, hectic impulses and impressions, your memory is compromised and your ability to make connections between cultural, technological and political events is stretched beyond its means like a cheap balloon enlarged by the ruddy cheeks of an overzealous 7-year-old.

However, some people, particularly certain science-fiction writers, are blessed with the ability to make those connections, enabling them to process the relevant information of the present and make startlingly accurate predictions about the future. Cases in point are George Orwell’s “Nineteen Eighty-Four“, Aldous Huxley’s “Brave New World” and, as it was just highlighted in the New Yorker yesterday, Octavia Butler’s 1998 novel ‘Parable of the Talents.’

I have to admit that I’d never heard of Butler (despite Queen Beyoncé mining Octavia for inspiration on her latest album), but that’s an oversight I intend to rectify posthaste. As Abby Aguirre puts it:

‘In the ongoing contest over which dystopian classic is most applicable to our time, Octavia Butler’s “Parable” books may be unmatched.’

Lately, with the rise of Trump, people have been falling over themselves in the quest to name the classic dystopian book that most aptly describes the present ‘Trumpified’ moment. Orwell’s media-controlled totalitarianism and Huxley’s culture held captive by trivial hedonism are inevitable science-fictional touchstones, but maybe Octavia Butler’s ‘prescient vision of a zealot elected to make America great again’ (actual words) is the novel that got it right. In ‘Parable of the Talents’:

‘The Donner Administration has written off science, but a more immediate threat lurks: a violent movement is being whipped up by a new Presidential candidate, Andrew Steele Jarret, a Texas senator and religious zealot who is running on a platform to “make American great again.’

In 2120, you might be asking yourself why we’re not doing anything if some people can see the train hurtling at us at breakneck speed. I can only say: good question. At the moment, a lot of people don’t really seem to care what smart novelists have to say.

Dear 2120,

Thought I’d share a newish track with you. I can’t decide if it’s really stupid or really great or an interesting mix of the two – which might be what makes it really great, to be honest. It’s been a while since I’ve heard news from Bullion, and Blue Pedro is an interesting proposition to say the least. Regardless of what you think of the music, I can’t help thinking that making a track, which sounds like the next Hobbit movie (in which Gandalf and Bilbo throw caution to the wind, venturing out to sea for a rowdy knees-up with their jolly dwarf brethren) is a pretty ballsy move. After more than half a decade of moody techno ruling the airwaves, this shines a joyful little light on my Monday. Have a listen:

 

Maybe it’s just the jam you need to set your Mars-based graduation party on fire?

Dear 2120,

Permit me, if you will, to intervene in your daily routine, which might involve managing an army of problem-solving artificial intelligence serfs utilizing vast amounts of accumulated data in the efforts to overcome the many challenges thrust upon you by us, your cerebrally impaired ancestors. That is, if the futurist predictions of my next interviewee turn out to be true.

Lars Holme Larsen.

On that note, I’d like to introduce you to my former employer and one of 2017’s very best designers: the award-winning Lars Holme Larsen, former Head of Design at KiBiSi and the current Founding Head of Design at Kilo. Other than being a world-class creative responsible for products like AIAIAI’s prize-winning TMA-2 Modular headphones, Carlsberg’s biodegradable Green Fiber Bottle and a diverse range of other bold, aesthetically sustainable design, Lars is also a very reflective man who spends a lot of time anticipating what the future might bring and how to go about meeting the inevitable challenges. You can probably guess why I’d like to talk to this guy.

A proud father of three, he has vested interests in creating a future where the next generation can grow up without having to navigate a gnarly, sci-fi-dystopian scenario. This has made Lars steer his design company, Kilo, in a socially responsible direction that could have lasting, positive impact on our resource-depleting consumption through forward-thinking, design-driven innovation.

Other than that, Lars’s products have this rad, iconic and timeless character to them. An innate, archetypal quality that comes with labouring incessantly over them and tweaking every little detail for a vast number of hours. This makes them look like they could last for the next 1000 years and survive several apocalypses. I mean, look at them:

AIAIAI’s TMA-2 Modular Headphones.

Bulbul’s Oblong watch. 

The packaging for the TMA-2 Modular headphone system.

The Bend lamp. 

Despite his somewhat grave concerns for the future, talking to Lars actually makes me feel sort of hopeful. Like everything’s gonna be alright. If it all goes according to the Kilo plan, at least, I’d say his game-changing take on idea- and solution-driven design will have positive repercussions that you should be able to feel all the way up to 2120.

Could you start out by introducing yourself and your design philosophy to our future readers? One thing that’s stuck with me is your concept of aesthetic sustainability.

Aesthetic sustainability is actually a philosophy that grew out of the Danish design tradition. It’s about creating a product with a certain aesthetic and quality that we perceive as appealing. We can see it as a part of our daily lives; today, tomorrow, in 5 years and in 10 years. That’s how the concept of the ‘classic’ came to be. A certain level of quality is required to survive. Or that you can update, make repairs, reupholster it and so on. I’m pretty taken with that product cycle. Designing the product that’s needed, as opposed to just designing a product. The one that you max out on all parameters, making it the best that you can get or the standard in its category.t was easier to design an aesthetically sustainable chair in the 50s because of the simple fact there weren’t that many different chairs then. Today, it’s been varied to a degree where there’s an overwhelming abundance of stuff, and you probably don’t need that many new chairs. Unless you can design a better chair.

The Scoop chair from +Halle designed by KiBiSi.

Generally, the biggest challenge right now is the speed with which we consume. There was a time when we would get a leather jacket and a pair of jeans, and we never really had to replace them. At some point, people started going: ‘Hey, we can sell that stuff.’ That’s when you started having two fashion seasons. Then there were four seasons. And now you get the feeling that they launch something new every week. For me, that’s one of the biggest ‘stealers.’ The way we’ve taught humanity to consume. Because we’re slowly but surely digging our own grave. I come from that cycle, but I’ve tried to take Kilo into a different direction, which means that we say no to a lot of clients and invest more in products and companies that can make a difference in the world.

At step in the right direction: Designed by Kilo and made from sustainably sourced wood fiber, Carlsberg’s new Green Fiber Bottle creates 0% waste. 

So time in a crucial factor in all this? The speed of consumption is the biggest challenge in creating sustainable design?

Yes, because the cycle is accelerating. You can interrupt it in two ways; either the consumer does it, meaning that they have to refuse to consume at the current speed. The other way is for companies to find a way of slowing down the rate and still make money. The thing is that there are commercial interests invested in the contemporary cycle of consumption. If we don’t buy all the shit they throw at us it stops. But maybe it isn’t a case of one or the other, maybe it’s a case of both. Consumers should be aware of the resources that we’re sitting on, and the way we manage it. The problem is that we all want what new and what’s fresh. But do we really have to have a new phone every year?Producing these kinds of products leaves a relatively large footprint. When I look at what’s going on at the moment, I feel fortunate that I’ve been born in a good place on this planet. With good fortune, comes responsibility. And when you’re sitting on the resources, it’s only fair that you carry a bigger share of the burden and give back.

 

‘..maybe AI is actually what might save us. For example, discovering the cure for cancer is within foreseeable reach. The scientific process is accelerating, and if we get much better and effective at treating the accumulated data through AI, who’s to say that we can’t solve similar problems within a year – instead of, say, 10 or 20 years?’

 

Looking at recent development in a positive light, maybe AI is actually what might save us. For example, discovering the cure for cancer is within foreseeable reach. The scientific process is accelerating, and if we get much better and effective at treating the accumulated data through AI, who’s to say that we can’t solve similar problems within a year – instead of, say, 10 or 20 years? But ultimately, this also creates a huge problem if people don’t leave Earth. We’re 7 billion people now and we’ve fucked it up. If that number keeps on rising at the same pace without the corresponding number the other way, you’re looking at insurmountable, fundamental challenges relating to how we live. All of this makes 2120 an interesting concept. I’m basically what you could call a decent person. I don’t get a kick out of cheating, I don’t think it’s cool to trash things. I believe in working in a conscientious way with what you’ve been given within the existing framework. And I have to live with how I work, which means that certain things probably take longer – and they don’t become extreme since it’s all placed in the middle somewhere to make all the ends meet.

Is being a decent person something you think will still be relevant in 2120? Are you an optimist as far as that stuff in concerned?

A quick glance at the world would seem to suggest that values are slipping. But I believe in love as a fundamental value that ties people together. Part of this is being inclusive and getting close to other people. This is my reservation about social media; it makes you think that you’re close to other people, it makes you think that people love you – but you can be damn sure that most of them don’t.

 

‘When I design I want to create the standard by which all other designs are met. I’d like to create icons that live forever. Then again, it’s hard to say what the future brings. It’s essentially a dream.’

 

Tell me about the thoughts behind AIAIAI’s TMA-2 Modular?

The TMA-1 which we designed in 2009 has now been transformed into TMA-2 Modular. Working from a circular approach, we’re meeting the consumer in a way which was totally new at the outset. It’s essentially about getting the user to buy into the product by constructing their own, unique headphone from a range of components. This flexibility creates less waste since we don’t have to go keep coming out with entire headphones in a steady succession. We can just introduce new parts and components. This means that consumers don’t have to throw an entire product on the scrap heap, they can just upgrade, making it a concept that’s much less harmful to the environment while simultaneously being better for the bottom line.

To me, that’s an ingenious way of securing the product’s relevance for the future – by making environmental concerns and business interests coalesce.

Yes, to a certain degree. But when we’re all running around with an implant in our jaw, we’ll probably be looking back and saying: ’Hey man, do you remember that time when we all rocked headphones?’ By which I mean to say that this concept also has a lifespan that stops if we look further ahead. But you have to play the cards you’re dealt within your given framework. For us, this has been a way of creating an innovative solution that’s good for business while being socially conscious.

Grime rapper, Novelist, rocking the TMA-2 Modular headphones in his London studio. 

And it’s not just about headphones. This can apply to other industries as well. Maybe it’s not that smart to just make something out of straw, you know? You have to design products that meet the market. But this is about how we conceive systems around consumption. I personally think it’s a good idea, plain and simple. Designing is about sampling different bits of culture, and I think it works when these bits come together in the right way. That’s when you get products that stand the test of time, like the TMA-1 headphone. It’s a powerful link between different bits that doesn’t go away. Ticking off all these different boxes that creates the good idea, is what it’s about for me. When I design I want to create the standard by which all other designs are met. I’d like to create icons that live forever. Then again, it’s hard to say what the future brings. It’s essentially a dream.

 

‘Nothing we make is ever 100% perfect. Reality sucks.’

 

But you have still have the ambition, right?

Of course. When we’re in the studio, we set the bar high and we go for creating unparalleled design. Still, nothing we make is ever 100% perfect. Reality sucks. There are so many parameters you have to contend with. The end result of the design process is the best you can possibly get – within the context existing at the time. If we talk about design in 2120, I don’t think TMA-2 Modular will still be around. But I think it’s in a museum somewhere. TMA-1 is at SFMOMA in their permanent design collection and I hope that the way in which TMA-2 Modular is conceived might have some kind of place in history.

AIAIAI’s TMA-1 at SFMOMA

Which of your products do you think stands the biggest chance of making it to 2120?

Assuming we haven’t trashed the planet completely, it’s… This is going to sound lame, but the best design I’ve made are my kids. If we include them in the design category, I can tell you that they’re much more work (laughs). With respect to my other designs, I hope that some of the products we created have helped spur positive developments. In terms of relevance and the future, we’ve just designed a product called Woobi, which is an anti-pollution mask for children.

Designing for the next gen: designed by Kilo, the Woobi Play anti-pollution mask for children filters at least 95% of dangerous airborne particulate matter. 

If we can say one thing for certain, it’s that we’re not going to get less pollution in the coming years. So that might still be around since it’s made for the next generation. Woobi is part of a general shift in our strategy, which is to stop the design of superfluous products and start to react to a rapidly changing world with appropriate products. Obviously, changing things is not going to happen from one day until the next. Considering the fashion industry and its all-consuming need for newness, behavioral change is a slow, incremental process.

Going back to artificial intelligence, is that something you could see yourself being a design partner on?

Possibly. I think that the human brain can only invent and design so much during its lifetime. If we’re to survive as a species, I don’t think it’s the human brain that will answer the pressing questions related to overcoming the daunting challenges. That will likely be facilitated by AI. The fact that you can crunch accumulated data and work at a rate, which is out of the range of human capacity presents undeniable advantages. In the efforts to fix problems that we created, but are unable to fix, I think artificial intelligence might be a significant factor.

 

‘I think design in the future will be used as a tool to solve problems and overcome challenges for humanity.’

 

This is a hard question, but what do you think good design will look like in a hundred years?

First of all, the aesthetic notion, the concept of beauty, which we currently operate with is firmly placed at the top of the Hierarchy of Needs. It’s only relevant in a world where we don’t really have any challenges. I think design in the future will be used as a tool to solve problems and overcome challenges for humanity. Going forward, our obsession with how we look and what kind of clothes we wear will be completely irrelevant.

At some point in my career it became extremely important to me to not be one of those designers that just added to the consumption party. Saying no to certain things comes with the territory when you think in those terms. I’m not an artist. I don’t have a need to create just for the sake of it. I do, however, want to take part in making things better by creating solutions for the ambitious clients that we work with.

That sounds like it might be the future of design.

I sure hope so. It might not be the easiest way to make money, but if I can balance these elements in way, so that I can make decent living for my family, and take part in creating a better world, I’m happy. In my heart of hearts I believe there’s a universality that can last into the future, and I think it’s based on creating essential solutions instead of just random solutions.

Berghain-resident DJ, Marcel Dettmann, using the TMA-2 headphones. 

I am not an artist, I see my job more as a midwife helping the design to evolve. We only add the ingredients needed – no more, no less. I’d rather clean out and find the fundamental substance. You have to work at this. When you’ve invested enough love and hours into a given product, it starts to take on a universal and iconic character that straight-up minimalism just doesn’t have. That’s the goal; to establish that universality. An example of this is the Green Fiber Bottle we designed for Carlsberg, which is 100% biodegradable and has the potential to create lasting change by way of its circular concept. To me that has universal relevance.

Any last remarks for our readers in 2120?

In 2017, we’re at a point where things are so fucked that it can’t be about me or you – it’s about us. There’s something very wrong about the richest 1% of the world population owning the same as the 99 % remaining. Creativity has to be focused on improving lives for all of us. We need multinational companies who are interested in creating a better future, and getting consumers interested in changing things.

This interview was translated from Danish into English. Keep up with Lars’s prescient design solutions over at: www.kilodesign.dk