CNN
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The Future Starts Here, a new exhibition at London’s V&A museum, presents 100 objects that trace a line connecting our uncertain present to a better future. Or catastrophe.
At the entrance to the exhibition, which opens on 12 May, visitors are greeted by BRETT, a robot created by UC Berkeley to learn how to automate humdrum human tasks. Here, he is sat between a mocked-up washing machine and pile of sheets, trying to sort and fold laundry – and not doing a very good job.
There is something comforting for anyone worried about the robot apocalypse in seeing this high-spec piece of technology clumsily mashing a box of towels into shape.
Rory Hyde, co-curator of the show, says the “deep learning” robot –BRETT stands for Berkeley Robot for the Elimination of Tedious Tasks – is earnestly trying to figure it out. But staff have spent many hours watching it get to grips with reality.
Victoria and Albert Museum
A view of the exhibition.
“It really is the cutting edge of artificial intelligence, machine learning, and computer vision. It’s trying to solve these kind of problems, in the messy real world, rather the clear confines of a car manufacturing plant,” Hyde said.
“It’s something, at home, we can all do almost without thinking. But to watch how hard it is for a robot to do it is kind of fascinating, and I think people will be mesmerized by it trying to fold a towel,” Hyde laughs. “How difficult it finds it!”
The organizers call the 100 objects “evidence of the future”: not sketches of sci-fi fantasies far-removed from ours, but actually existing or part-functioning technologies which could soon revolutionize our worlds.
In a futuristic hangar below the marble sculpture-lined galleries of the V&A, the exhibition showcases tools for cryonics, a coffeemaker that works in space, an airplane that could broadcast Wi-Fi by laser, and an autonomous boat that cleans the seas.
Heather Dewey-Hagborg andFridman Gallery, New York City
CNN Style has selected 12 interesting objects from the 100 presented in the exhibition. This "DNA portrait" depicts Chelsea Manning, the military whistleblower and trans activist, created by artist Heather Dewey-Hagborg from swabs of Manning's DNA taken while she was in prison. The technology behind it aims to create portraits of crime suspects from DNA, but the techniques have opened up questions about how far our DNA and outward appearance are necessarily linked.
Facebook
Facebook plans to launch its 140-foot wide unmanned drone to provide internet to unconnected areas of the world. But, if these become ubiquitous, what will it mean for online freedom when one site owns the infrastructure of your internet?
BioArt Laboratories
Jalila Essaidi has created a network made of trees capable of communicating over long distance. She hacks trees to transform open "world wide web of trees" that anyone can transmit into using amateur radio frequencies. This is the inverse of Facebook's vision -- grassroots communication.
Kuehn Malvezzi Architects/Ulrich Schwarz
A church, a synagogue and a mosque all in one building. Designed for an island in Berlin, it will be unique in the world, say designers Kuehn Malvezzi. This is the product of local religious leaders getting together -- and challenging their own congregations -- to imagine a more integrated city.
Victoria and Albert Museum
Created by Seismic and designer Yves Behar, the suit is equipped with electronic muscles and designed to help the elderly.
Ernie Buts/Democratic Self-Administration of Rojava and Studio Jonas Staal
An architectural model of the Rojava Parliament building that opened two weeks ago in Northern Syrian. The progressive Kurdish leadership propose an alternative democratic system, with no aspiration to become a nation state, emphasizing secularism, gender and social equality, and based in communalism. The new building, designed by artist Jonas Staal, communicates this radical project to the world.
Eenmaal
Meaning "one meal," developed by Dutch designer Marina van Goor, aims to take the embarrassment out of dining alone. In the Netherlands and in many countries Up to 30% of households are single person household, yet the stigma of dining alone in public persists. At the exhibition, one-person tables allow visitors to watch the crowds while being treated to a dinner of Soylent, a liquid meal.
UC Berkley
Sometimes clumsy, but still learning, the Berkeley Robot for the Elimination of Tedious Tasks could one day help with the jobs we all hate. Similar to manufacturing line robots, BRETT is taking time to learn to adjust to the complexities of the real world.
Victoria and Albert Museum, London
This golden spike is designed to be hammered into rock to mark the beginning of the anthropocene -- the geological period defined by human activity dominating the environment and climate. This is intended as a marker for generations to come of where humans changed everything.
E.O.Wilson Biodiversity Foundation
Described by the New York Times as the "Steven Spielberg of molecular animation," Dr. Drew Barry combines cinema and science to expose the microscopic worlds inside our bodies. One of the exhibition's key themes is our own bodies -- when these molecules become as easily designed and manipulated as electronic systems, what future is there for the self?
Bento Bioworks
The company, which launched a successful Kickstarter in 2016, called this the first complete DNA laboratory, suitable for a beginner to a professional. It allows users to discover if they possess the "athlete" gene ACTN3, a trait of many world sports stars, or see if a hamburger contains horse meat. A first step to making our fundamental building blocks readable -- and editable?
Victoria & Albert Museum
Japanese space start-up ALE is developing the technology to deliver on-demand, man-made meteors, and hopes to create a future where "you can use our meteors for international fireworks displays". The exhibition asks if we should see our planet as a design project -- ALE foresees one of the more spectacular possibilities.
At a time when news reports expose how the invisible algorithms that promised to bring us together may have been used as tools to hijack democracy and drive society apart, the exhibition makes the case for physical engaging with tech products.
Hands-on
Visitors are invited to get hands-on: sculpt sand that transforms into a virtual map of rivers and snow-capped mountains, climb inside a driverless car and even sit and drink in one corporation’s vision of the future – solo dining with a nutrient-fortified drink of Soylent for one.
Victoria and Albert Museum
The exhibition is open until Nov. 4, 2018.
These are the “beginnings” of new ways of living, when we are not yet sure of the endings, says co-curator Mariana Pestana. We are at the fork in the road between better and worse futures.
“Could your toaster turn against you?” asks one poster; could even clumsy BRETT become a threat? One the first questions submitted to the exhibition’s Twitter bot, which aims to give answers about our future, asked if robots will replace us.
“The question we’re looking at is how will technology change our everyday lives?” says Pestana. “What kind of a world are all of these things bringing into play? Where do we fit into it? How do they change the way we think?”
The curators explain that they subscribe to “The Theory of the Accident”, described by French cultural theorist Paul Virilio. Virilio believes, ominously, that the invention of the ship already contained within it the sinking of the Titanic, and birth of nuclear power already contained the catastrophe of Chernobyl.
As these 100 prototypes are transformed into everyday objects, and creations like BRETT move from cack-handed to slick, taking a hands-on approach to technology will be crucial, says Pestana.
“These objects have unknown potential and unknown consequences that no one – perhaps not even their creators – can anticipate.”