I knew the very day we were first briefed and given the deadline dates for 501 module that i would be in this position, and i sure haven't proved myself wrong. I didn't think i could be in a worse position than i was last year with the essay, but I've surpassed even my predictions for underachievement. I also didn't think i would struggle to come up with an essay question as i had done in Year4, but again, it's all been a similar story. I fear for the big one next year, if i even make it through that far?!
I hadn't even looked a my notes for possible essay subjects for god knows how long, i'd just completely shut all thoughts of COP out for as long as i could. As ever, i'd also not taken into consideration the practical response to this module and even at this stage I know ill be having to work backwards. If only i could find more things interesting enough to want to write 300 words about, then i'm sure i wouldn't have this problem every year.
So, as i had nothing of any worth to submit i just collated what scraps of ideas & quotes i had so far mustered and sent an explanative email to Pete so he could at least see what i'd very vaguely thought about writing my essay on.
How has society's predictions & visions of future fashion, music & technological advances changed since the 20th Century?
"Dystopia: an imagined place or state in which everything is unpleasent or bad. Typically a totalitarian or environmentally degraded one. The opposite of utopia."
• Look at at fashion & music and technology from future-set films & tv shows from the 60s/70s/80's, and comment on how they their 'future' looks basically the same as their present day, albiet with more tin foil and neon piping on their spandex jumpsuits.
• Why did they find I so hard to imagine the advances in all these areas of culture. Are people trapped their own time and society?
• 70's & 80'S Films that are set in the future are all simplistic & dystopian scenarios - with very obvious good & evil characters, and the technology portrayed in the films is also very obvious, with big-assed guns and tanks and flames etc. Societys idea of good and evil is actually much more complex - for instance terrorism and drone strikes kiling Pakistani children. Technology is much more subtle.
• Look at sci-fi future-set films of the past (set in a future date that has is now our past) and see if any of their predictions for the word were accurate.
• Look at modern age future set sci-fi fims and see if any of the predictions and visions might be accurate.
BACK TO THE FUTURE 2 - DEMOLITION MAN - ESCAPE FROM NEW YORK - TERMINATOR 1&2 - THE 6TH DAY - STRANGE DAYS - 2001: A SPACE ODESSEY - 1984, all films with visions and ideas of a future date which are now the past.
"The Horse is here to stay, but the automoblie is a novelty, a fad" - advisor to Henry Fords accountant, 1903.
"There is no reason for any individual have a computer in his home" Ken Olsen, president of Digital Equipment Coprporation (DEC) in a talk given at a World Future Society meeting in 1977
"No one will pay good money to get to Berlin to Potsdam in one hour, when he can ride his horse there in one day for free" King William I of Prussia, 1864
"Television won't last because people will soon get tired of starting at a plywood box every night" Darryl Zanuck, movie producer at 20th Cnetury Fox, 1946
"A rocket will never be able to leave the earth's atmosphere" New York Times, 1936.
"There will never be a bigger plane built"
A Boeing engineer talking about the first flight of a 247, a twin engine plane that carried 10 people.
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