AND WHERE ARE WE GOING TO?

The Gaité Lyrique is a centre which exhibits creations in numerical design of every imaginable and probably unimaginable form. Music, art, architecture, graphic art, informatics - you name it. There is an exhibition on at the moment, «2062 Back and Forth to the Future» but if to be understood, needs an added interest in all the conferences with scientists, artists, writers ...etc. which have gone on during the exhibition, or perhaps installation. «The End of the World» «Who are we» ....A friend had shown an interest in seeing it and I am always pleased to make discoveries.  There is a time line from the 1860’s to today and further into the future which indicates what was created (and in many cases show examples  like an old record player, the first computer...) 

And computers have come a long way
Some of us remember this in 1959
and then what could be decoration for shoes or jewels in the years to come. The Bio garden (miniature), a new generation of creams (Nivea). When you take the mini brochure which supposedly takes you around the 3 floors, it is not easy to follow. What are you looking at? Is it the future and if so, why?

So I did not struggle with the leaflet and just started looking at what was around me.

 A screen of synthetic food being reproduced ad infinitum; enclosed tents where we might live; outside installations which looked like long cushions and then suddenly, garbage  was scattered in front of them; new urban transport systems - which seemed as encumbered as today; water falls rising in the opposite direction. A beautiful moving picture but why would we want a waterfall to move upwards?

Walk in air and a necklace that floats
Water rising ....
Food I don't want to eat

Then really the big question mark came when I walked into a gallery with many animal portraits. The animals faces were not real and most had blue or green eyes. The eyes moved as did the faces and at one moment, the face was dressed with a mask as if the animal was protected from some kind of poisonous gas. People wandering around didn’t seem to be overly impressed.  I just didn’t know what I was looking at.


 This was not home territory until I looked at  the Airbus 380 or a little electric car. Then I was on firm ground.
A bit chilly in the winter ?
Took it from Dubai to Paris - wonderful



Water travels in all directions


 But most of the time, I could not relate to the future that was shown. Was I supposed to? Numerically clever without any meaning and even less so when I took the leaflets here at home and tried to fathom out what on earth I had seen.  



Because of telephone operator problems (I had just changed my system) - I could not contact the friend to say I was held up in a traffic jam in the bus....he never saw the exhibition and I was more upset about today’s operating system not working than what I was supposed to be experiencing in 2062....So after coffee and a late bit of lunch, onto the Beaubourg or the  Pompidou Centre - with a sigh of relief.



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