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[7] Utopia

In this week’s lecture we discussed the concept of the “symbolic universe” as a cultural “structure of legitimation” capable of organizing the social world as comprehensible and connected. The structure of the symbolic universe then, places the individual in a known and knowable space. Such social structures are critical for societies in transition. Can you identify the creation of any “symbolic universe” today (or in recent years)? How might media and design be implicated in the construction of these social universes today?



"By utopia I mean ...: a good, beneficent place, better in all ways than that in which its creators live." This picture of a utopian future was painted by the American Fairs of the 1930s as a response to the Great Depression. "These fairs delivered ... a buoyant, optimistic message extolling the positive consequences of science and technology for life in the future." The Chicago and New York World exhibitions were a chance for America to evolve. Because the fairs were held in the middle and the end of the Great Depression, times of significant desperation and aspiration for a fruitful future.


"These visionary displays posited a future in which scientific advancement and industrial technology acted as progressive and liberating forces which promised a society of leisure and abundance, that, in fact would be realized after World War II." Design was, and still is, the fuel that constantly thrusts society toward the ever distant symbolic universe. This American movement took the abundant scientific and technological advancements presented during the Chicago and New York World Fairs, and constructed a future utopia. Designers were the visionaries, developing the present to alter what lies ahead. Through world fairs, this rapid progress achieved a fresh lust for the future, and nurtured the idea of the utopia being reality's escape.

Similar to the 1930s, today's public persistently attempt to reach a greater future. In this technological era, constant advancements in the fields of science, medicine and technology gives today's public hope - their symbolic universe. With the whirlwind of new product and cures, the public are in no doubt that their lives are advancing for the better. We live in a society where there is a new technology or advancement just around the corner, guaranteed, specifically in the field of science.

Advancements have been made in the field of the brain’s vision on the world. "UC Berkeley scientists have developed a system to capture visual activity in human brains and reconstruct it as digital video clips. Eventually, this process will allow you to record and reconstruct your own dreams on a computer screen." The concept of recording your own dreams has for centuries been an unrealistic future. Though utopia is forever out of reach, the fruitful future is arriving so rapidly as if the world's rate of progress is accelerating, especially in this era of technology and mass design.





Folke T. Kihlstedt, “Utopia Realized: The World’s Fairs of the 1930s,” In Imagining Tomorrow, ed. Joseph Corn (1986)
Kihlstedt, F. (1986). Utopia Realized: The World’s Fairs of the 1930s in Imagining Tomorrow: History Technology, and the American Future (pp.97-118). Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press.
Jesus Diaz (2011) Scientist Reconstruct Brain's Visions Into Digital Video In Historic Experiment http://gizmodo.com/5843117



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