Scattered notes on future imaginaries, collapse, and exit strategies – Part 1: On sci-fi aestheticism(s), Moon landings, and archaeologies of humankind

Introduction

In this creative writing exercise, we share a selection of short entries that blend academic references with pop culture, contemporary art, diary-like notes, and sci-fi imaginaries.       We combine texts, music, and images in a multi-sensorial journey that encourages the reader to approach our contribution with an open heart and mind. This contribution is meant as a raw offering since we are also in the process of digesting, elaborating, and reflecting upon the material. In the creative spirit of this multi-sensory journey, we encourage the reader to consider all the references to various types of media as an integral part of our contribution. The initial idea was to share reflections based on the exploratory material gathered for the research project Ecovillages as laboratories of sustainability and social change (EcoLabSS). When interviewing people who decided to leave behind their conventional lives and move into intentional communities there were, perhaps unsurprisingly, ruminations on escapism, survivalism, and collapsology. 

While pondering how to best respond to the call for papers for this special issue, however, we realized that we wanted to share much more and go far beyond the provisional fieldwork material. As a result, we gave ourselves the luxury of writing freely, unbound by the structural and stylistic requirements of standard academic articles. This contribution comprises what we call notes, each of which varies in its narrative style and centres on a different theme or array of themes. By no means should any of the notes be interpreted as a finalized piece of academic scholarship since they are intended as a reflection or set of reflections spurred by ongoing research, exploratory interviews, encounters, and abundant cultural references. If we accept that culture and especially pop culture represent a barometer for contemporary times, then it is easy to see that collapse (the apocalypse) [1] and collapsology are becoming an increasing source of inspiration for books, artistic installations, films, and TV series.

So: What is the apocalypse? Can a war or a pandemic be thought of as apocalyptic events in someone’s life, with the impending, human-induced sixth mass extinction smouldering in the background? Is an event worthy of the label apocalyptic only if it involves humanity in its entirety? Or can we nonetheless experience the apocalypse and the collapse at a more individual, personal, and private level? How should we – researchers of organizations and of organizing – theorize exit strategies? Is exit synonymous with escape? Or, in alignment with the Italian political philosopher Paolo Virno, can or should exit be a form of engaged withdrawal from our capitalist way of life (Virno, 1996)? The questions to be answered are many. Too complex. Unfettered by the rigid structure of academic articles and without forcing a unifying narrative upon the flow of ideas, we generously afford readers a sneak peek at our digital research diaries so they can draw their own conclusions, if even doing so is at all possible. 

Call it, if you like, a moment of (consensual) academic voyeurism. 

Note 1.1 Post-apocalyptic core: An exploration of sci-fi aestheticism(s)

Popular culture informs many of the ways we think visually. For a long time, most of the descriptive prose and images specifically concerning the future were derived from science fiction. For example, big Japanese cities of the 1980s encompassing a combination of cyberpunk and hyper-technology have furnished inspiration for the futuristic aesthetic found in most popular science fiction, especially recent iterations (figure 1). Flying cars speed between endless skyscrapers, neon signs flash with bright blues and reds, enormous ads float in the urban space, and smoke envelops hooded figures.
 

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Aesthetics appear to be a useful way for us to think about the future, but how deeply do they extend into our imaginations? Do they (de)limit our capacity to envision future societies by overwhelming our imagination with hyper-technology, dystopia, and despair? Do they inspire us to take action to make a better future, or are they merely a cheap distraction from the fact that humanity is actively setting up its own demise? The diffusion of visual and social media has only intensified our tendency to think aesthetically, the rising number of [insert noun]core trends on TikTok exemplifying the inclination to aestheticize the inaesthetic. Goblincore, for example, is an aesthetic and subculture recently flourishing online that involves emulating goblin behavior by collecting second-hand objects and celebrating aspects of nature not conventionally considered beautiful, e.g. soil, animal bones, and weird fungi. Most recently, and not far removed chronologically from the advent of the recent war in Ukraine, a TikTok trend emerged pairing pictures of desolate, dismal Soviet-era buildings reclaimed by nature with a moody chiptune[2] soundtrack (figure 2).

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In this case, the collapse of the Soviet dream of deploying technology, propaganda, and architecture to advance and promote the feeling of a unified society under a communist regime was aestheticized, much like the mini-series Chernobyl (2019) became a source of contemporary inspiration for media representations of grimdark despair. Comparable dystopic visuals have recently been used in the widely popular TV series The Last of Us (2023-), which is based on the video game with the same name. In the series the main character is named Joel, a stoic, traumatized individual trying to navigate life in a post-apocalyptic world devastated for 20 years by a pandemic caused by a fungal infection. Joel finds himself forced to transport a teenage girl named Ellie across the post-apocalyptic US. As one of the very few humans immune to the fungus, she can potentially provide biomaterial for a vaccine to save humanity. Together, the unlikely pair travels through deserted landscapes and dilapidated cities in search of a hospital where scientists can study Ellie to find a cure for the zombie-like humans infected with the fungus. Akin to our TikTok and Chernobyl examples, The Last of Us depicts nature and wilderness slowly reapproaching, reclaiming, and reappropriating post-apocalyptic urban landscapes (figure 3). There is a twist, however, because nature (the Cordyceps fungus) is also the cause of humanity’s collapse and not humanity itself, unlike what is the case in many other sci-fi TV series, films, and books.

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The aforementioned examples effectively replicate the kind of post-apocalyptic (core) aesthetic that started with New Wave science fiction of the 1960s and 1970s, which appeared as a reaction to the Golden Age of Science Fiction (1938-1946), where stories often depicted utopian futures in which humans used technology for the common good.[3] The stark contrast between these two ways of envisioning the future – utopian vs. dystopian – has been partially resolved and reinterpreted in a myriad of ways in science fiction, but the relationship between technology and nature still takes centre stage in many of the most well-known sci-fi franchises. 

Humans are often placed on the nature side of the equation, and their relationship with technology is used as both the subject and/or object of the stories. But the nature-technology divide is rarely fully resolved. Sci-fi aestheticisms can help us make sense of what we are meant to think but, in a puritan oversimplification, the nuances within and between each respective typical ideal scenario can become blurred and thus problematic, i.e. we risk closing off our imagination to futures with the ability to include and mix technology with nature, the artificial with the biological. Based on this (oversimplified) dichotomy, let us explore how it has been visually depicted across a various sci-fi media.

We begin with the city of the future. It is technologically advanced, championing the values associated with scientific progress and freedom. Full of primary colours contrasted with shades of black, it is usually inhabited by mysterious, morally grey characters. Possibilities for adventure and sinful activities are endless. Films like Blade Runner (1982) and, to some extent, the Star Wars franchise (specifically the planet Coruscant, which is so urbanized it looks like a computer motherboard) do a magnificent job in depicting such a cosmopolitan imaginary. This technological wet dream can nevertheless also be heavily industrialized and dystopic, a concrete hellscape. The opportunities an ultra-urbanized technological landscape offers are many, but its uncertainties are just as numerous. You are free to explore galaxies like a bounty hunter, à la Cowboy Bebop (1998-1999) and The Mandalorian (2019-). If you fall from grace, however, you quite literally fall into the abyss of the megacity. In a vertical descent from riches to rags, you land on the ground floor, or, even worse, underground, in an even more hyperbolic version of the vertical class divide than the one illustrated in Bong Joon-Ho’s film Parasite (2019). 

The blues, greens, and browns of a small colony on a far-off planet, in contrast, hint at its connection with nature and its stable, earthy spirit. Within this utopian futuristic aesthetic, there is nowhere to fall since human society consists of small collectives where individuals support and care for each other, in striking contrast to the hyper-individualized city. But the humble human colony can also be portrayed as dull, primitive, rudimentary, and resistant to the progress embodied by the big city. Life in this simple community is dreadfully boring, repetitive, and predictable, as depicted in the early episodes of the TV series Raised by Wolves (2020-2022) produced by Ridley Scott, of Blade Runner and Alien (1979) fame, to name a few. 

Raised by Wolves tells the story of two androids who, following a disastrous war on Earth, establish a small colony on a new planet with the mission of raising human children. The only activities the humans can undertake in this colony are farming and education in atheism and the (hard) sciences, both facilitated by the androids. Only the war between the human clans disrupts the monotony and boredom. The series can be seen as an interesting illustration of how shiny chrome technology is contrasted with beige nature and unglamorous environmentalism. The androids and their adopted human children care for their land and for the farm next to their crashed spaceship, where they reside (figure 4). Again, the hyper-technological future (the spaceship) is visually juxtaposed with back-to-nature imaginary (the farm), the latter being communal, down to earth – although in the case of Raised by Wolves only figuratively so – and distinctly human. In another illustration of the same juxtaposition, one of the androids fleetingly transforms into an object of mass extermination while her fragile human child, in his raggedy brown tunic and greasy uncombed hair, watches the scene terrified. In this way, the exaggerated technology also serves as a reference point to underline the need for a grounded, analog future able to complement the hyper-technological one. 

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At the same time, sci-fi portrayals of the ‘other’ – typically ‘other’ with respect to a human race originating from Earth – can also be quite problematic when technology is the sole factor marking the authority of one species over another. The Prime Directive ​​(also known as Starfleet General Order 1 or the non-interference directive) in the original Star Trek TV series (1966-1969) illustrates this phenomenon quite well. The Prime Directive, in fact, imposes an order of non-interference in alien societies that have not yet achieved the Starfleet’s level of space travel, supposedly an indicator of their level of cognitive development. Such a blatantly colonial assessment of the ‘other’ implies that this ‘other’ is considered primitive and less advanced, though simultaneously romanticized and labelled as strange, exotic, and alluring.

The cyberpunk subgenre has been particularly creative in depicting the complex relationship between nature (and/or humans) and technology. Emerging in the early 1980s and as part of the New Wave science fiction movement, cyberpunk films, comics, and animations have dealt with this dualism by magnifying its contrasts. The animated cyberpunk film Akira (1988) is an elegant example of how this genre can expose the tensions between nature and technology by deploying, similarly to sci-fi films and books of the Golden Age of Science Fiction, an oversimplified approach to a much more intricate relationship. In combining the biological with the artificial, Akira shows that our knee-jerk reaction when seeing technology become a constitutive part of human bodies, wires fusing with veins, is to reject it as bizarre and disturbing, to label it as disgusting. In the storyline, Tetsuo, Akira’s main antagonist, rejects melding with the machine, resists the mutation, and tries to maintain control, both literally and metaphorically, over his human body (figure 5).

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Another example of the same phenomenon in cyberpunk can be found in the animated film Ghost in the Shell (1995). In this fictional world, continuous upgrading of human bodies with cybernetics has resulted in alien-looking humans, to the point where something as conventional as typing on a keyboard appears more like the movement of a spider-like creature than that of a human being (figure 6). 

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We have a far easier time villainizing technology when it exists outside of our bodies, e.g. in the case of the androids (cylons) in the TV series Battlestar Galactica (2004-2009). Despite having enslaved androids, humans hold it against them when they rebel, revealing their assumption that their distinctive humanness makes them superior to anything they could ever create. Like in Blade Runner, the deceptiveness of the android counterpart represents humanity’s greatest fear. Humans are deeply suspicious of these beings, if that can even be considered beings, and not just as conscious objects. An old trope stemming from literary classics of the creation turning against its creator – consider Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein (1818) – continues to evoke fear to this day. Fear (at times mixed with fascination) has been represented in contemporary iconic sci-fi film masterpieces such as 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968), EX_MACHINA (2014), and Her (2013). 

Technology, its relationship with humans and nature, and the related aesthetic seems to be, if not outright central, at least the foundation for our imagination of the future. If space exploration and travelling faster than the speed of light allow us to colonize other planets, then it is assumed that humankind must start anew on those planets in earth-toned, back-to-nature communal societies. The central question then remains: Is our capacity to imagine and envision the future restrained by the aestheticism(s) that sci-fi pop culture offers? And, if this is the case, what are the consequences?

Note 1.2 Collapsing the dichotomy

As a continuation of the previous note, we created a set of images in collaboration with the Midjourney Bot, an AI software that generates images based on text prompts (figure 7). Adding the Midjourney Bot to a Discord server makes it possible to interact with the bot in a #newbie chat, where other users’ prompts are visible, and to create images in real time[4]. Midjourney, which can create realistic and abstract images, is constantly evolving, which means the images and video the Midjourney Bot produces only reflect its capabilities at the exact time of creation. We know that bad data notoriously make for bad algorithms, and the jury is still out on whether the AIs we have created have gained, or can gain, consciousness, and thus transcend the human knowledge database they are based upon. Consequently, we are still left to wonder: If human knowledge informs the AI, is it also as cognitively limited as we are? Is it possible for us to create something that can go beyond ourselves, or is the art we create in collaboration with AIs only a reflection of our own humanity? 

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In an effort to capture and combine some of the aesthetic landscapes discussed in Note 1.1, the four prompts we gave to the Midjourney Bot followed this order: post-apocalyptic aesthetic; a perfect post-apocalyptic society; post-apocalyptic utopian society with hyper technology and hyper environmentalism; and a future where technology and humans coexist. Notably, in connection with these reflections, the images Midjourney created seem prone to depict dystopian-looking landscapes, despite the word ‘dystopia’ not appearing at all in any of our prompts (although ‘apocalypse’ does). In addition, the default visual landscape also leans towards the hyper-technological future depicted in mainstream sci-fi media instead of the hyper-environmental, back-to-nature one. The latter appears only in the prompt for the bottom left image in figure 7, which, in fact, is the only one of our four images with greener, more natural elements.

We leave you to interpret the images on your own but would like to add a comment. Even though we should not essentialize the features of humankind – and this is especially important when reflecting on the features that we expect (or do not expect) to encounter in AI – some of the oft-repeated things in relation to what makes humans human are: humans are capable of love and of creation and can find purpose beyond the purely biological drive to reproduce their species. The capacity to love seems like a feature that could be extended to the animal kingdom, especially to animals with a more developed amygdala than ours, for example, orcas, which scientists claim are able to experience similar, if not more intense, emotions than humans. Being capable of creation is a distinguishing characteristic that revolves around the idea that humans can create something out of nothing. Finally, with regard to purpose, we assume that other beings on Earth are cognitively static and incapable of evolving and learning within their own lifetimes. We presume that our consciousness and self-awareness are enough to separate us from – and mark our superiority with respect to – our fellow animals and allow us to purposefully change both ourselves and the things around us. 

In one of the most memorable scenes in the film I, Robot (2004), a humanoid robot that claims they can feel and dream, encounters a human detective that is sceptical about robots. The detective starts to question the robot, and in an effort to prove his own humanity (i.e. his superiority), he effectively imposes upon the robot a kind of purity of consciousness test by asking: Can a robot write a symphony? Can a robot take a blank canvas and turn it into a masterpiece? The robot simply replies: Can you? 

Note 2. I’d rather not 

Here am I floating ’round my tin can

Far above the moon

Planet Earth is blue

And there’s nothing I can do.

Space Oddity, David Bowie (1969). 

The latest exhibition at the Danish Architecture Center in Copenhagen, Denmark, is about humans living on the Moon (SAGA, 2023) and about humans (or some of them) re-launching explorations on the Moon after NASA’s final mission, Apollo 17, in 1972. As we wander through the dark corridors, interrupted only by enormous glass walls overlooking the canals, we wonder whether this is really necessary. Planet Earth is literally burning down, and they are thinking about going back to the Moon? 

There, in the middle of the main exhibition room, is the living (or, better, the survival) unit: A giant capsule-shaped structure with skinny robot-like, metallic legs enveloped in shiny hexagonal insulating panels. Our first reaction is that it is terribly ugly. When we get closer, we notice that visitors are allowed to enter. The tiny entrance includes a small toilet on the side. Inside, the light flickers and is almost too bright. There are wires taped all around the internal walls. The inside is tight and develops very much vertically. On the lower area, two desks made of raw pieces of wood, two screens, and other instruments allow the capsule’s inhabitants to monitor their bodily functions and conduct experiments (mostly on themselves). Two black kettlebells lie on the floor, like those used in CrossFit routines. The sleeping areas occupy the top part of the module and can be closed-off with zippers to provide more privacy for their inhabitants. We cannot help but think about two lonely astronauts masturbating two meters far from each other in their tent-like cocoons in the middle of a lunar crater. We quickly rush out, almost stumbling on the metal ladder that elevates the capsule a couple of meters off the floor. We take a long, big breath. Feels nice to be out. 

Note 3. Life on Mars?

Three chatty robots land on planet Earth looking very much like the US after an apocalypse (figure 8). The cause of said apocalypse is unclear: It could have been climate change, a nuclear catastrophe, an epidemic, or an alien invasion. What happened to the humans? All dead, apparently. Signs of their attempts to exit, however, remain. The robots accompany the viewer through an archaeological tour of what is left of human civilization. 

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The survivalists preppers were anti-state, working class (and presumably white) libertarians. Chill country music is still playing in the background. Razor wires, a deadly trap for animals, still demarcate their gated community. There is a profusion of guns scattered on the grass, guns are inside the house, and guns stacked in boots. Something must have gone wrong though. Did the community implode before its inhabitants started to kill each other? Or did nature start to take revenge against them? The explorer robots find human remains impaled at the bottom of what they call a blood pit. 

The second scenario, with seasteaders, is not in any way jollier. They were rich though. Definitely richer than the countryside cowboy preppers. They colonized oil rigs in the middle of the ocean to create fully sovereign nation states. And to exploit technology to survive. And to eat fish and sea greens. They must have thought of themselves as living the best possible life in luxury holiday camps while the rest of the world was collapsing. Skeletons are still lying on lush sunbeds, wearing headphones and holding fancy cocktail glasses. The Californian ideology is that:[5]

We must accelerate capitalism, technological advancement, and growth. We can decouple growth from environmental destruction. This will save humanity, or, at least, it will save us: the tech-millionaires. (Dawson, 2018: 185)

The Silicon Valley millionaires and start-uppers ‘wearing hoodies and with crippling social anxiety’ (Love, Death & Robots, Season 1, Episode 1) had embraced this ideology. Alas, something must have gone terribly wrong here too. A food chain saturated with microplastics, and automated seastead attendants rebelling against their human creators shouting: ‘Catch your own fish, you disgusting meat-bag’.

What about the world’s political leaders? The expectation is that they should, they must have tried to save humanity, to establish a new world order, or at least pretend to. Actually, no, they did not. They hid in nuclear bunkers[6] and, when the self-sustaining hydroponic cultures collapsed because of a bacterial infection, they reverted to extreme democracy and voted to eat each other. One at a time. The final scene portrays the extreme, literal exit from planet Earth. The solution for the obscenely wealthy 0.01% of humans. A slow, 180-degree camera roll shows a setting that looks way too similar to Cape Canaveral and a never-ending sea of skulls and skeletons. In a desperate attempt to reach the capsule ready to be launched toward Mars, they were roasted by cannons shooting fire. Our explorer robots look horrified at the scene and sententiously declare: 

Humanity had all the tools to heal their wounded planet and save themselves. But instead they chose greed and self-gratification over a healthy biosphere and the future of their children. (Love, Death & Robots, season 1, episode 1)

Watching the recordings from the control room, however, it seems like at least one human space module successfully managed to land on the Red Planet. But we do not want to spoil the ending for you.

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[1] We use ‘apocalypse’ and ‘collapse’ interchangeably even though their etymological, historical, and cultural origins differ. 

[2] Chiptune is a subgenre of synthesized electronic music produced using PSG sound chips or synthesizers from, e.g. vintage arcade machines.

[3] For an extensive overview of stories from the Golden Age, see The mammoth book of Golden Age Science Fiction: Ten classic stories from the birth of modern science fiction writing, edited by Isaac Asimov et al. (1989).

[4] Midjourney was chosen specifically due to its interactive layout and the possibility to view images as they are created. See Petersen (2022a; 2022b) for images and videos illustrating the process.

[5] See Barbrook and Cameron (1996).

[6] See Rushkoff (2022) for more details on billionaires buying bunkers to prepare for the apocalypse.