Sydney 2030
In Sydney 2030 our relationship with ‘reality’ is almost completely mediated by technology. Access to remote computing, everywhere and all the time, is a given; as is customised advertising and experiences, and the use of augmented reality via invisible devices that sit almost within the body. The majority are constantly connected; living in a hybrid space of ‘the real’ and ‘the virtual’.
The culture of objects is replaced by the culture of experience. The ‘retail shop’ is a café, bar, nightclub, projection room, global lounge. Our public squares are chill-out zones, news rooms, outdoor theatres and gaming platforms. We travel constantly, through the virtual.
Ironically, our most unified political motivation globally is to save ‘the real’; our ‘natural’ enviroment. We largely agreed to implementing systems to monitor enviromental sustainability on a governmental, business and personal level.
The dissemination of technology to developing countries was considered a priority, an aid to knowledge and self empowerment (and democracy - they had hoped).
The Oil Crisis of 2015 jolted us into a new reality; the finite nature of our natural resources and the fragility of World Peace. Oil Wars ensued, resulting in major shifts in world power, increased radicalism and a major decline in physical movement around the globe as airline services rapidly declined.
Tensions arose between Nations determined to control remaining oil reserves (and other natural resources) and those who rallied for diplomatic control of these resources in the name of saving the planet. Technology was mobilised to facilitate this uneasy transition from our addiction to oil.
With the emergence of the virtual, the ‘net’ has become not only the infrastructure of networked warfare but the site of conflict.
While the ‘virtual’ was at first the realm of priveledged entertainment and high-end business; constant ‘connection’ seen as an advantage even a freedom, some are now beginning to question our willingness to adopt the virtual world. More often it is only the rich that enjoy the ‘real experience’.
Our ambivalence towards the boundaries of public and private have led to the disintegration of both. The pubic has become increasingly privitised while the private increasingly monitored and controlled by commercial interests. The technological infrastructure that seemed to offer all the answers, has become the means for entrenching the control of social behaviour and public space. Protocols - diplomatic, social and technological – have come to control our lives.
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