BFA Thesis: 2100 CE

As humanity marches into the 21st century, it's becoming increasingly imperative that we confront a number of uncomfortable questions. What monolithic challenges do we now face that will come to define our collective future? How do we intend to address them, and what will our world look like at the turn of the coming century if we fail? Unfortunately for us, research suggests a remarkably dystopian fate.

2100 CE is a speculative, visual exploration of our relationship with artificial intelligence, government surveillance, climate change, and capitalist models of exploitation through a critical, science-fiction lens. The project is an ongoing collection of print and digital media which blurs the line between science fiction and reality and seeks to inspire both curiosity and contemplation about the dystopian possibilities that scientific research predicts.

Above: video and photos from the installation at the Grunwald Gallery of Art at Indiana University's Bloomington campus in March of 2019.

Above: an experimental 3D render featuring posters from the 2100 CE gallery installation.

PURE 纯

PURE 纯 (chún) is a brand that produces fashionable face masks for everyday use. As air quality steadily declines alongside expanding industrial production and our stubborn dependency on non-renewable fossil fuels, the use of face masks like these is becoming increasingly commonplace in large, industrial cities. In areas like Beijing, pervasive, metropolitan smog already necessitates the adoption of anti-pollution masks which are designed to look fashionable and trendy. In fact, this dystopian exploitation of adversity is readily visible through online retailers like this one where customers are presented with a dazzling array of attractive designs that allow you to suffer in style. In the year 2100, we may not be able to safely breathe the air around us, but at least we'll look good!

Retrospective

I'm writing this from January 2023, three years into the COVID-19 Pandemic. When creating this project, I had no idea that the planet would be consumed by the plague of the 21st century barely a year later. My work sadly felt all too relevant. Before I knew it, I was surrounded by a reality I had only imagined as part of a hypothetical exploration. Of course, the masks are intended for a different purpose, but the trend is the same - companies quickly jumped at the rare opportunity to commodify a neccesity in a time of desperation.

Behind the Design

Bespoke typography was designed for the primary elements including the logotype and product title, MASQUE. The Chinese text beneath the product title reads "breathe out the old, breathe in the new" (Nà xīn tǔ gù | 纳新吐故), a four character idiom which comes from an ancient tradition that dates back to the Han Dynasty.

The Chinese language was chosen for this design after I had heard, and read, countless stories of people suffering the adverse health effects that come with prolonged exposure to air pollution in places like Beijing, Shanghai, and Guangzhou. It is important to recognize that these conditions are not exclusive to China, however. By PM2.5 concentration (μg/m³), cities in India, Turkey, and Thailand also rank among the top 100 most polluted regions in the world. What's important is that this is a global issue, and one that will only get worse the longer we neglect to adopt clean, renewable energy sources.

Ash Robotics

Ash Robotics is a design and manufacturing company that specializes in artificial intelligence (AI), particularly machine learning. This field of AI has seen a massive growth in popularity throughout the beginning of the 21st century and sees no sign of stopping. As the technology develops, so too does its trend toward advanced intelligence, even sentience. The implications of these developments are frightening, to say the least. Horrifying, if we consider our historical willingess to oppress and subjegate any lifeforms we consider to be beneath us.

Behind the Design

The NOVUS5 logo is composed of bespoke typography designed specifically for this poster. The name Ash Robotics is a reference to the android aboard the USS Nostromo in Ridley Scott's Alien (1979). Likewise, the NOVUS 5 pays homage to the bioengineered humanoids called Nexus-6 replicants in another of Scott's films, Bladerunner (1982).

Above: wherever one can find a powerful corporation of dubious moral fiber, one can surely find a resistance movement to oppose it. The Synth Solidarity Network is a grassroots organization that seeks to dismantle the manufacture, sale, and ownership of synthetic life (also known as synths in this world). The text has been translated into Kúmu and synth-script; the former is an imaginary auxiliary language based on Esperanto, a constructed language intended to be a global lingua franca; the latter is simply Wingings 3, a sort of tounge-in-cheek approach to a universal script for androids worldwide.

Talos Corporation

Talos Corporation represents the future of drone technology. The name is derived from the mythological Greek automaton, Talôs, whose story has evolved over time, but whose purpose has remained unchanged: protect humanity. The towering, bronze machine eventually falls victim to deception or sabotage, leaving the isle of Crete vulnerable to attack. In the 21st century, we've created more sinister bronze men - aerial drones whose gazes turn inward, not outward. Law enforcement agencies have begun employing drones for surveillance purposes, equipping them with live-feed cameras, radar, and even non-lethal weaponry. In conjunction with federal agencies' databases and rapidly evolving facial recognition technology (expanded through social media), these drones can identify individuals with incredible precision, strengthening an already robust surveillance state. Where might this technology take us by the year 2100?

Special Thanks

This project would not have been possible without the support of my amazing friends and mentors who helped me along the way. I would like to thank the following people for their contributions and encouragement: Minghua Xie, Logan Doyle, Sarah Edmands Martin, David Ondrik, Christine Wang, Broly Su, Lee Oliver, Javan Barton, my parents, and my amazing brother Greg.

I would also like to acknowledge the artists and thinkers whose work inspired me to create this project, including Ridley Scott, James Cameron, Philip K. Dick, Isaac Asimov, Ron Cobb, Chris Foss, Syd Mead, Sparth, Moebius, and the Bloomington Solidarity Network.

Photo Credit

Thanks to the photographers below whose work was used in this project: