Common Futures
Our relationship with the future is a fragile one. Its intangibility prohibits us from any definite comprehension and instead is contingent on our own hopes, fears and belief systems. What this leaves space for
however is a sense of wonder; our inclination to consider what might
be and how this might be achieved. Often these ideas centre around
the short to medium term directions our societies seem likely to take,
be that dystopian or utopian. Themes of exploring the universe,
technological advancement and a future for man in which life is better
are regularly turned in on themselves to instead become cautionary
tales. This imagining has resultantly lead to the development of (or
reassigning of) recurrent ideas about what the future will be like.
What therefore does that future look like? Common Futures is a series
of images that aim to explore the visual language of the future, looking at why we deem some designs and symbols to be enduringly futuristic often regardless of age or application. In investigating how our conceptualisation of the future both informs and is informed by culture, Missen explores the aesthetic likenesses between objects and
imagery that may categorically seem unrelated, but share common
traits. Practically this has entailed photographing and sourcing imagery from institutions that have an innate relationship with cutting-edge technology and design attributes that are frequently described as‘futuristic’. This thus far includes: European Space Agency facilities at German Aerospace, Die Neue Sammlung Design Museum at the
Pinakothek der Moderne in Munich and archive imagery from NASA
in the 1950 and 60s. The series also includes images that employ the
same visual language but are extracted or constructed from the
everyday and appear alongside those from technological and design
institutions. By creating a situation in which it is impossible to know
what is truly modern, what has historically been considered modern
and what is fabricated we are invited to consider how these images
seem related and what the forces within our culture are that drive
these perceived commonalities.
This work is in ongoing.