Earlier this year I was invited by ACMI, Australia’s museum of screen culture, to pick seven objects from games, film, and TV that’ve influenced how we think about the future. The talk was inspired by my book A History of the Future in 100 Objects, which I updated in 2020 in a new edition with MIT Press.
ACMI did a fantastic job producing the talk, which is now online:
One “object” I explore is Minority Report’s ill-fated but hugely influential gestural computer interface, briefly tracing its evolution through Jeff Han’s famous multi-touch demo at TED, Microsoft’s Kinect, and now the Apple Vision Pro. Other works include Death Stranding (exoskeletons), Westworld (androids), Master and Commander (frigates), System Shock (neural interfaces), Paprika (DC Mini dream control device), and Sliders (parallel universe travel).
I usually cover games, so it was a genuine delight to be invited to talk about some of my favourite films and TV shows too! My thanks to ACMI and Seb Chan (check out his newsletter) for the opportunity.
mssv 