Author: elc

In the video of Maya Lin talking about Pin River, she mentions hoping that people will be affected by her artwork. She doesn’t specify exactly what she hopes that action will look like, but she seems to be referring to some sort of call to action. However, she also emphasizes that she doesn’t want the … Continue reading Art and distance

In our class discussion on Wednesday, we spoke about finance and literature as forms of fiction: finance as deterministic fiction, and literature as descriptive fiction. In other words, both forms of fiction provide estimations about the past, present, and/or future, but the estimations of finance typically influence the course of the future, while the estimations … Continue reading Depicting finance in NY2140

Ever since seeing the clip from Brazil that we watched in Monday’s class, I’ve been trying to parse what I found so grotesque about Mrs. Ida Lowry, the wig-wearing woman who receives plastic surgery. I’ve also been trying to understand what I found so nauseating about watching the President eating a protein block in Snowpiercer--aside … Continue reading Tracking Teeth: Humanity in Snowpiercer and First Reformed

Wednesday’s class discussion acknowledged that most artistic imaginings of the future--particularly in science fiction--tend towards pessimism. From nuclear hellscapes, to invasive surveillance, to a world without food or water, we don’t have a lot of optimism when we imagine the near-future. In “On Speculative Design,” Benjamin Bratton gives us permission to move away from the … Continue reading Optimism vs. Speculative Design