Monday 2 February 2009

editor's letter

LAN magazine is a quarterly publication for the fashionable futurist with an interest in the world of tomorrow, now. LAN will feature innovative design, technology, silhouettes, new environs and dimensions that are provocative, strange and inspiring.

The premiere issue “Paradise Lesage” will consider two polar visions of the future: the dystopian society versus utopian. The issue draws its mood from Alain-Rene Lesage's La Tontine:

"I don't know any more than you what the future will hold. But my point of view is different. You see despair and I see cause for hope. I read the future in a way that is more agreeable than you do.”

Optimism for the Future
The magazine wishes hopeful tones upon a present mindset of creative cynicism, which negatively affects the way we view the future of fashion, technology and science. LAN believes that the universe (and its parallel) is vast enough to explore who, where and why we are now, and who we will be in eons to come,

3 comments:

David Kames said...

Did you ever get the feeling you were born sooner than you'd like?
When I was a kid I used to wish I'd been born 50 or 100 years from now - because according to most science fiction narratives by then we will have all kinds of cool stuff like interstellar travel and technological solutions for environmental problems and direct mind/computer interfaces. The problem is that in all these stories the first half of this century is always taken up with pollution and famine and nuclear war :-(

Avataris said...

Hello David,
I just finished "Tomorrow, Now" by Bruce Sterling and really enjoyed it- Sterling discusses things that could become 'normal life' to us in 50 years. some abstractions: BACTERIA, TASTY KNICK-KNACKS, INTELLIGENT FURNITURE, etc.

David Kames said...

What is intelligent furniture?
What does it do that makes it substantially more useful than regular furniture?

I think the common pitfall of most futurology is that it thinks of technological progress as being a force independent of consumer demand - whether you predict dystopia or Utopia it's a common failing not to answer the question; why would people buy that?

I assume you've read Bruce Stirling's Viridian Green manifesto - I remember when I first read it thinking "this guy gets it!"
It seems such a brilliant and effective idea that the Green movement can be consumer lead and save a lot of time that would have had to be wasted fighting for some kind of alternative control of industry.