A Vision of 100 Years Later: The 21st Century

“Prediction is very difficult, especially if it’s about the future,” is how Niels Bohr puts his thoughts about predicting the future into words. . There are tens of scientists and artists who have been trying for years to predict the future, some of them right and some of them wrong. The future was predicted in tens of novels. Edward Bellamy mentioned people in his novel “Looking Backward” (1888) who used some kind of cards instead of money in year 2000. 62 years after this novel, credit cards was started to be used. Future prediction is now too much harder than it was in the past. Our technology developing incredibly fast. We, the ones who have managed to take photographs of dwarf planet Pluto in 9 years, are preparing to take photographs of a black hole which has massive gravitational pull so strong that even the light can’t escape from it.

There are not only scenarists and novelists among the artists who predicted future. There were also French artists who transfer what they saw in their heads to the canvas without writing. They were imagining 21th century France in the early 1900s, 100 years later. 87 works of art  which were reproduced for the World Exhibition in Paris in 1900 were exhibited all over the country on cigarette boxes, and later, as postcards.  The strong interest that the people of the 20th century had in flying can be seen in these artworks. Flying public transportation vehicles, flying mail carriers, flying taxis and flying police who would secure the busy air traffic.

Flying firefighters

Almost every individual has their own wings. The artists who think that when flying everything would be easier, actually are not wrong.

Divers riding seahorse

The artists were also interested in the undersea as much as they were interested in the sky.

Audio journal

Modern radio was drawn directly. A few years after this drawing, radio waves started to be transmitted with the purpose of communication

Video chat

One of the prophetic predictions is video chat. 22 years after the drawing, transmitting image and sound was accomplished.

A tailor of the latest fashion

Drawings can tell us which matter was the most troublesome in early 1900s. Dresses were made by hand or sewing machines, which were invented in 1830.

At school

This system, which would have make education easier, is still an extremely futuristic idea in 21st century.

A well-trained orchestra

Mechanical instruments are under the control of a human conductor. We can find examples of this idea in our era. But  mechanical instruments performing art is still not acceptable by our society. And it seems like it won’t be acceptable for a long time.

A new-fangled barber

Drawing: Villemard, 1910

The artists imagined that almost everything would become mechanical and the labor force would be minimized. But we still live in an era in which people wouldn’t trust a mechanical arm to cut their hair.

A night at the opera

Many aircrafts were portrayed in Paris’s sky. Patrolling police officers, limousines, busses, taxis and private aircrafts were travelling in the sky. (UA)

*This article was published in FlapMag magazine.