Alternative futures: AmI scenarios and Minority Report

In the last few decades, scenarios have provided a way of analysing the implications of alternative futures, especially as they might be impacted by new technologies. This has been no less true of ambient intelligence (AmI), which may be embedded everywhere in the not so distant future. Most of the scenarios developed by AmI enthusiasts have been rather ‘sunny’, showing how the new technologies promise to make our lives more efficient, enjoyable, productive, enriching. A European project, called Safeguards in a World of Ambient Intelligence (SWAMI), deliberately developed ‘dark scenarios’ to highlight the threats to privacy, identity, trust, security and inclusiveness posed by the new technologies. The SWAMI consortium also developed a methodological structure for deconstructing and analysing the dark scenarios. This paper takes that approach a step further by applying it to a cultural artefact, partly to test the validity, utility, applicability of the SWAMI methodology to a scenario not constructed by the consortium and partly to show how some cultural artefacts can be regarded as scenarios in their own right as well as warnings about future technologies. The cultural artefact chosen here was the Steven Spielberg film Minority Report, because it features so many AmI technologies and draws attention to the issues that have been the focus of the SWAMI project.     

Bug planet: Frontier myth in Starship Troopers

This paper examines Paul Verhoeven's 1997 film Starship Troopers against Robert A. Heinlein's eponymous 1959 novel, arguing that both productions reinscribe the ideologies of America's mythic frontier history in their fictional futures. The paper shows that despite the conspicuous postmodernisation of narrative in Verhoeven's adaptation, components of the frontier mythology codified in Heinlein's novel— expansionism, Social Darwinism and a violent relationship with the indigenous Other—remain at the film's thematic centre.     

American rules, OK: Difference and otherness in ‘Independence Day''

According to its advertisement copy, ‘Independence Day' delivers the ultimate encounter when powerful aliens launch an invasion against the human race. Does this ‘ultimate encounter' simply retrace the old fashioned Hollywood theme of good versus evil? Or is there a more sinister meaning woven into the text of the film? This paper deconstructs the narrative of the film to reveal the underlying monolithic, Americanised modernity and argues that ‘Independence Day' provides an allegorical legitimation for Pax Americana.     

The future formula; or, are there lessons in history?

With this article I.F. Clarke looks into the mega-historians who have roamed through world history in search of final explanations for the rise and fall of civilizations. He argues that each civilization creates the future in its own image—a perpetual cycle of renewal for the Greeks; a straight road to eternity for the mediaeval world; and the promise of constant improvement—moral and material—for the Victorians. The unexpected scale of change in World War I transformed the old certainties of steady-state progress, and the most extreme response came in the shape of Oswald Spengler's notorious Decline of the West. I.F. Clarke says that looking backwards is a hazardous business. He thinks that all would-be seekers after the spirit of past times should start every day by reciting the passage in Goethe's Faust: ‘What you call the spirit of past ages is but the spirit of this or that worthy gentleman in whose mind those ages are reflected’.     

On the moving line and the future subjunctive of drawing in a post-Duchampian age

This article proceeds from the position of an in-depth analysis of present visual art practice, in so far as it reflects past histories and contains the germ of a not very enticing future. Beginning with the refusal of contemporary art to define its field (contrary to the evolving skill- and specialist-based practices of other art forms), it is argued that post-modern artists exploit the universalist doctrines of conceptual art to plunder other disciplines in a romantic, laisser-faire, if ironic manner. This colonisation is the result of post-modern theory and the influence of Duchamp and a consequence of the abandonment of drawing in its structural relation to art practice. In arguing for the importance of abstract and conceptual ways of exploring new ideas through drawing (as a complex and rhyzomic set of graphic connections, evolving in time) distinction is made between the rigidly systematic and the broadly systemic infrastructure of drawing in relation to creative acts. Following a notion borrowed from the short-lived Polish writer Bruno Schulz, that ‘time is too narrow for all events’, the second part of the article proposes an alternative post-Duchampian future dependent on the slogan ‘there cannot be a future for art without drawing, and drawing is the future of art’. Within this practice-based scenario, artists will also have to re-invent a culture of philosophical and moral responsibility for representation, specifically in relation to the field of animation, the meeting of drawing and high technology. This field cynically promotes brutality and pornography of all kinds, within negative graphic images of sexist and racist stereotypes, yet falls outside of artistic discourse. The recovery of drawing is linked to questions of artistic agency as well as notions of critique and probity.     

It's only a paper moon

This article considers recent ‘end of history’ and ‘end of nature’ hypotheses in the context of new scientific and socioeconomic paradigms, and seeks a broader understanding of the nature of information society. Through a review of recent work on future socioeconomic and scientific and technological developments, the conservationist view is rejected in favour of ‘wise design and governance of evolution’. Planning and forecasting have a central role in this process.     

The future of art in postcultural democracy

Has the future of art fallen irredeemably into the grip of the ‘creative industries’ directed by a consortium of public and private cultural entrepreneurs? Is democracy the natural guardian of artistic independence? Or has the cultural policy agenda of neoliberal democracy solidified into a managerial instrumentalization of art geared to the functions of the market and the state? European Cultural Policies: 2015 provides a model introductory text for a discussion of these vital issues in near future forecast. The authors of the report are independent curators operating from dissident research groups whose aim is to challenge the dominant neoliberal model of cultural enterprise and offer viable alternatives to it. This paper examines the report's diagnosis of a symptomatic cultural predicament and its proposals for future recuperation.     

New leaders shine light on shadow of denial

At first glance, I was quite sure that I wanted to take on Don Michael's 1991 Futures essay—‘Leadership's shadow: the dilemma of denial’. My initial glimpse suggested that he was advocating that we might ‘hope’ our problems away in the absence of any proven strategy for action. It was with this interpretation that I agreed to respond to an invitation to submit an essay for this colloquium as a reaction to his original article. However, after reading the article more carefully in preparation for writing my response, I was impressed with the foresight Michael demonstrated, given that he offered it for publication in late 1990 which meant he had written it some time earlier.     

The world food crisis

With 2,400 million people on the wrong side of the ‘hunger gap’, of which at least 1,000 million suffer from overt hunger, public education is required into the nature of the world's food crisis. It is insufficient to grow more food in general; it has to be the right kind to satisfy nutritional needs. While animal protein consumption per capita in the satisfied world has increased from 36 to 44 grams per day, that in the developing world has declined from 11 to 8. This is partly because the 450 million people that comprise the well-fed world have to a large extent become parasitic on the hungry world.     

Europe's slums

This article is a personal view of current East European evolutions. The author proposes a vision of a split Europe and depicts the historical processes tracing out new frontiers across the continent. The features of the future European slums represent the extrapolation of some characteristics of the Romanian situation and of its difficulties of reintegrating into Western civilization. To the extent that this same situation is specific to the other ex-socialist states in the Balkan peninsula, they will share the common destiny of a separate development counter to Central and Western Europe, being pushed to the periphery of European civilization. The author's intention is to trigger the world through presenting a dystopia of a community doomed to live in the servants' quarters of the future European house.     

Eleonora Masini on the empowerment of women

Eleonora Barbieri Masini's lifetime contributions as visionary sociologist and pioneering futurist are well known. Less well known, perhaps, are her roles as vital catalyst in organizing comparative research on the role and status of women and as activist leader in efforts to end the exploitation and subordination of women and to create a future world of equality, freedom, and social justice. In this article, examples of Masini's work on—and for—the empowerment of women are given.     

Limited imagination: Depictions of computers in science fiction film

Are speculations about the future ever truly inventive, or are they overly limited by today's reality? Many scholars suggest the latter, and have so for millennia. If this is true, speculations about the future in science fiction film should be closely constrained by today's reality, and truly novel and accurate visions of the future in science fiction must be rare. This paper presents a comparison of how computer technologies have been depicted in popular science fiction films with actual computer technologies that existed when the films were made. The investigation included charting the occurrence of 11 trends in real-world computer technologies and types of computer interaction (e.g., mainframe computers, textual and vector graphic-based interfaces, keyboard and mice) in 10 popular science fiction films spanning four decades (e.g., 2001: A Space Odyssey, Blade Runner, and Minority Report). The investigation revealed that depictions of computers in science fiction films mirror, for the most part, real world trends in computer technology development. The article concludes with a brief discussion of some implications of this finding.     

A post-nationalist South Asia

The ideas of ‘nation’, ‘national security’ and ‘development’ have played havoc with South Asian cultures. The notion of ‘nation state’ has tended to reproduce aspirations of the majority people who are often reconstructed by alien categories and leads to the alienation of minority communities. Virtually all ethnic conflicts in South Asia have their roots in this idea. A more viable and desirable future for South Asia lies in rethinking the model of development and reinventing the notions of state and security.     

Forecasting our environmental future

This series now comes to an appropriate end with the most menacing set of question marks ever raised about the future of the human race. During the past two decades—from the inauguration of the Club of Rome in 1967 to Margaret Thatcher's famous ‘green’ speech to the Royal Society in 1988—an ever growing volume of research has erased the old-time notion that we live out our lives in a steady-state world. As the bad news has spread—environmental pollution, acid rain, the warming of the oceans—a consensus of anxieties has found expression in a global fear for the future. Is there anyone who would gainsay the possibility that, as Mrs Thatcher put it, ‘with all these enormous changes—population, agriculture, use of fossil fuels—concentrated into such a short period of time, we have unwittingly begun a massive experiment with the system of the planet itself’? The scale of these changes and the measure of the dangers they bring—these provide the range of cause and effect in Dr Woodell's reflections on the great harm we have done to the human environment. This is the one occasion when an editor can truly say: Read on for the survival of our species.     

Researching the future: method or madness?

This paper examines the methodological issues behind futures studies, questioning whether it is possible to claim a futures study as methodologically ‘sound’, and critiquing how futures methodology fits within the methodological paradigms currently recognised in the research field. The extent to which futures methodology can be considered a paradigm in its own right is also examined as are the assumptive foundations of futures studies. While all the evidence raises many questions as to the form of futures methodology, the lack of clarity does not make a futures study invalid or unreliable, and hence sensemaking from the chaos of futures ‘data’ does ensure that futures studies can be based on method rather than madness.

How does one research the future? The very notion of researching the future is a paradox. The word research lies within the time boundaries of the past and the present so to research the future appears a logical impossibility. Attempts to ground the methodology in any single paradigm or set of constructs proves a fruitless task. Indeed, it becomes apparent that when undertaking research into an area that is something new, in the future, which could constitute a new field of research, fundamentally a new methodology needs to be created. This paper discusses how the development of a futures methodology is an on-going process which cannot be bounded by the limitations of strict rigour, but is nevertheless a rigorously sound approach to carrying out research.

When researching the future, no one method is appropriate in isolation. While quantitative methods such as forecasting, extrapolation and time series may prove useful if there is raw numerical data to work with, a hypothesis cannot be tested and proven as is the case in many quantitative studies. Given the nature of ‘the future’ itself, raw quantitative analysis needs contextualising and interpreting in light of the assumptive future constructs, and the assumptions themselves need examining for ‘assumption drag’ so that underlying trends and wave patterns are accounted for [1].     

Errors and weaknesses detected by the European Court of Auditors in the reports on the European Structural Funds 2000–2004

The present paper shows the weaknesses and the errors detected by the European Court of Auditors (ECA) in the reports regarding the Structural Funds (the European Social Fund (ESF); the European Agricultural Guidance and Guarantee Fund, ‘Guidance’ section (EAGGF-Guidance), the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) and the Financial Instrument for Fisheries Guidance (FIFG)), presented by 15 countries of the European Union from the year 2000 to 2004. We have classified the said countries in four groups, regarding the date of their EU incorporation. The main aim of our work is to highlight the errors made by the Member States on the management and control of the structural funds received from the EU, analysing the likely causes and consequences of such errors.     

Services in the new industrial economy

‘Manufacturing matters’,¹ but ‘So do services’. The future of industrialization is the future of both these increasingly intertwined and interdependent activities. Rather than a post-industrial society, we are seeing a new mode of industrialization encompassing and integrating manufacturing and services. This article considers the prospects for services in the new industrial economy,² focusing on innovation in services. Services have frequently been considered to be relatively poor in economic performance. However, regarding services as laggards is decreasingly useful when considering contemporary services, many of which are the major users, carriers and promoters of many classes of innovative hardware. New services (such as software and telematics) are performing vital roles in the diffusion of new technologies, techniques and organizational styles. This article outlines some trends in the service economy, examines the special nature of services, considers how services are changing their products and processes, and assesses emerging strategies for organization and trade in services.     

Assessing a problem-oriented social technology : A general conduct

In a commercial environment, TA is frequently seen as an extension of technological forecasting with the purpose to provide arguments for company policy. Following the contribution illus- trating this approach, which was published in the last issue,¹ Futures is now introducing another concept of TA as a policy-oriented activity in the area of “social technology”. This article discusses methodological lessons learnt from an attempt to assess the impacts of the introduction of no-fault automobile insurance on a nationwide basis. It is concerned with the development of systematic procedures for analysing two types of future conditions: (1) the unintended social impacts likely to result from a given innovation in a relatively stable external environment; and (2) the changes in intended impacts and additional unintended impacts likely to result from coupling the given innovation with other prospective changes in the external world.     

Dissolving the stranglehold of the fix : A role for social construction in dealing with environmental dislocation

The current approach to environmental dislocation and innovation is characterized as ‘dualistic’. Dualism is described, implications worked through and the existence of another, ‘dialectical’ approach is proposed. A dialectical worldview, it is suggested, complements the strengths of dualism and extends our intellectual reach. Such a view encourages recognition of social and epistemological contexts of dualistic constructs and of the dislocations that arise when they are operationalized. It enables an extension of our involvement with the world from accountability to responsibility. Mundane examples are offered in which dialectical implications and social constructions are revealed, and shown to be an effective basis for resolving, or avoiding, dislocation.