Why the Future May Not Look Futuristic

Visions of the future, such as 'Star Trek' or 'Blade Runner' often show a world where technology covers everything. Walls are alive with pipes, circuits, lights, and other very functional things. Buildings often have exposed evidence of 'high tech' things, more pipes, antennas, etc... Dramatic scenes are shown in computer rooms with huge equipment everywhere. Vehicles are often festooned with funtional-looking gadgets. Of course these sort of tech-decorations are used to make things look different and dramatic, but our future seems to be headed in a different direction.

But the big story these days is not big, visable technology, it is small tech that can look pretty much like the designer wants it to. Most computers are small, and the big ones are never in the same room as their users, unless there is a deliberate effort to have the setting look cool (The now obsolete Connection Machine was covered with blinkenlights mostly for dramatic effect). Pretty much the only part of most computers that is visually interesting is what's on the screen. If a computer looks like anything other than a box it's because the designer wanted it to, not because there was a functional reason for doing so.

The only 'futuristic' addition to the skyline that really came to be is antennas. The satellite dish is the premier object of sci-fi antenna art, and one of the few that is commonly seen in the real world. But even satellite antennas are getting smaller and less visable. Many communities, which probably suffer from a deficit of sci-fi fans that think antennas look cool, actively oppose the sight of antennas, so when its impossible to make an antenna to be small enough that nobody notices, the antenna installers go to great lengths to get them out of view. They use fake palm trees, or hide them in already-built towers such as church steeples or the tops of skyscrapers. So visable antennas are becoming a relic of the pre-cable TV days; There will still be antenna towers, but they will seem more like holdovers from the past than visions of the future.

In the 'Future' buildings will have all kind of amazing shapes, and will often be made of gleaming metal. Geodesic domes usually figure largely, and 'Archaic' materials such as wood and stone are rarely seen. While there are plenty of fancy and futuristic buildings, Airports are often very high-tech in appearance, most Americans still live in old Virginia style homes. High-tech metal and polymer sidings are carefully molded to look just like wood slat. Modern double-pane low-E glass windows are decorated with a grid so that they look like windows from the days when making a window-sized pane of glass was too much of a pain. No wires need to run all over the walls, because we have wireless networks. Dome shaped houses never caught on. Domes gave better structural strength, but so do new materials. Domes conserve heat better but so does modern insulation. The shape of the home often has more to do with style than necessity. Many buildings are made of metal, but gleaming exposed metal is more the hallmark of the warehouse district than the future. The 'House of the Future' could very well look like an Amish cottage, but still pack more tech than NASA ground control during the moon missions.

Futurists weren't all wrong, two very popular 'Futuristic' items really are decorating the 2000's. These are the flat screens and the blinkenlights. Unlike the movies, the blinkenlights are usually purely decorative. But now that bright colored lights that flash in custom patterns are cheap, they are popping up everywhere. Cars are decorated with lights that shine down on the street, many boxy PC's have lights to keep them from looking so pedestrian; Casemodding is the new hot-rodding. Cell phones light up like Las Vegas. Vegas itself has even more lights than before, some of which form huge video screens to show off ads for the latest Vegas shows. You can decorate yourself with all kinds of blinking jewelry too, especially if you are headed to a rave.

Flat-screen video tends to be a consistent vision of the future, at least after TV was invented. After all, who wants to waste space on anything other than the 'active ingredient' which is the screen? Capitalizing on visions of future past, these TV's are often the metallic silver that many 'future' objects are portrayed as being. In fact, the one thing that betrays the futuristicness of your high-tech olde Virginia house may be the big-screen TV shining through the window. Of course, nostalgia comes to all technologies, and flat-panel screens with wooden frames are beginning to appear on the market.

So the future isn't all it was thought to be, visually speaking, but in many ways it's better. After all, you still have the option to watch your huge flat-panel TV in a geodesic dome festooned with blinkenlights, but your could also look like you live in the 1800's without the indignity of actually having to go without your gadgets.

P.S. Cell phones are becoming more popular in Amish communities.