“When I was a child, looking at a seven-segment display, I used to think about future. Now the future has come and SSD is an obsolete technology, yet it still evokes an idea of future, this time seen from the past. Just like watching Robert Longo’s 1995 cyberpunk milestone movie Johnny Mnemonic, which foreshadowed topics such as digital ethics, philosophy of information and A.I.
It’s convenient that everything from the past has already been digested and accepted: we don’t struggle to recognize the beauty of the Sistine Chapel or Donatello’s pulpits at the San Lorenzo Basilica in Florence, even though they were highly criticized during their respective times of making.
On the other hand, it’s comforting -according to capitalist culture -to think about future as a constant investment potential -an ever-winning bet: “That’s going to be the next Joan Mitchell” or “We’ll live on Mars (so let’s continue to fuck up this planet)”. But the present -which separates past and future in the timeline -is what’s really interesting: in the present there are no hopes, there is no time for interpretation. The present is not predictable nor necessarily comfortable; in the present everything is just the way it is.”
-Francesco João
