Cultural Futurism: Possibilities, Probabilities and Potential

Written By Art Now Thus

Written by Hina Siddiqui, Queer Neurodivergent Storyteller exploring Transmedia, Gaming, working with Education, Experience-creation and Community-building

 

I spent a certain amount of playing and replaying the demo of a yet-to-be-released game called Love Shore this past week. Created by Perfect Garbage Studios, Love Shore is a visual novel cyberpunk noir featuring an entirely LGBT+ cast. In the year 30XX, humans in the city of Love Shore face a fertility crisis. The solution: S.Humans. Basically, cyborgs; described by the game page as, “Their minds, physical appearance, and personality would be drawn from their parents’ DNA, but the children would be ‘born’ using artificial bodies.” You can play the game as one of two S.Human characters: Sam or Farah to navigate your way through this futuristic metropolis that just happens to also be populated with cyborgs, old gods hidden in the depths of a criminal underground, and humans eager to crawl their way to the top, no matter what the cost. 

 
Cover Image depicting Farah and a screenshot showing Sam - the two playable characters in Love Shore. Image Source: Love Shore Steam Page

Now, you would think that the big thing I took away from the game were the gorgeous protagonists, amazing aesthetics and gritty cyberpunk storyline. But no, what this got me thinking about was how we are handling similar crises in different parts of the world today, whether it’s…

America overturning Roe v. Wade

or

Uttar Pradesh’s Population Control Bill

or

Spain’s new Women’s Health Law

or

Japan’s ex-PM Shinzo Abe state-sponsoring hentai anime to bolster the population <wink, wink>

That last one is almost certainly a joke. Almost.

Image Source: Know Your Meme

And no, before you cringe and turn away, this article is not going to be about cultural trends in baby-making practices. This is simply my patented system of using things I come across in my daily internet trawl, to long-windedly introduce the topic of this article: Cultural Futurism and the ways in which we project to the future our desires, hopes and ambtions.

Probably Relevant Side-Note: Futuristics, contrary to popular belief, is not a term invented by Marvel to describe the activities of one Tony Stark. It’s an actual field of study that a lot of people engage in on multiple levels with vastly differing goals. As the Center for Philippine Futuristics defines it, Futuristics or Future Studies is a multidisciplinary science involving a rational approach in assessing the future aided by technologies such as forecasting, visualization methodologies and systems, and trending analysis through the use of various integration softwares. It also involves research, logical analyses and critical thinking, and verification of data. 

According to the this TEDx talk by the founder of Center for Philippine Futuristics, Gil Santos, use of AI in field medicine, intelligence gathering in the military, performance budget presentation by national leaders, master planning in architecture, trend forecasting in fashion, curriculum planning in schools or risk mitigation strategies used by nonprofits are all examples of the application of futuristics. As are business plans for your baked goods start-up. 

Probably Relevant Side-Note to Side-Note: Futuristics is not to be confused with Futurism which is an art and social movement that originated in the early 1900s in Italy - an example of which, can be seen below. Though the focus on shape and dynamism, and the use of technological objects as materials of artistic exploration could be considered a shared aspect. 

Joseph Stella, Battle of Lights, Coney Island, 1913–14, oil on canvas. Image Source: Wikimedia Commons
 

So, now, what is it that we are actually talking about?

Cultural futurism can perhaps be seen as a subset of futuristics that is mainly practiced within the literary and artistic spaces. As a cultural aesthetic, futurism combines history, fantasy and science to deliver localized narratives and philosophies that address the human needs of a population within its own cultural context. At its essence, it is people and collectives using current understandings of sociopolitical realities to imagine what culture and human behaviour will look like - ten, twenty, hundred, even a thousand years into the future. And it is always specific to the culture it originates from.

 

Consider the case of Afrofuturism and Africanfuturism.

Afrofuturism addresses themes and concerns of the African diaspora through technoculture and speculative fiction. And Africanfuturism features speculative fiction which narrates events centred on Africa from an African point of view. The two are different things. As speculative fiction writer and editor, Aigner Loren Wilson explains it in this Tor.com write-up, “That (Africanfuturism) doesn’t mean that the stories have to take place explicitly on the continent of Africa, but that the themes, characters, and roots of the story are based in Africa and not in America or another predominantly white Western culture.” This distinction is important to acknowledge when talking about cultural futurism, because a diasporic and native narratives come from inherently diverging spaces. And while there are overlaps and commonalities, there are also clear differences in terms of narrative and authorship. In order to engage with this further, do check out Nnedi Okorafor’s blog: Africanfuturism Defined. Here she explains why she coined and started using the term to describe her writing.

Probably Relevant Corrigendum:

I added the update about Africanfuturism after the article was originally published, based on feedback from author Nnedi Okorafor and Lynn M. Harvey-Akan on my Instagram. I thank them for taking the time to point out my misunderstanding. I apologize for misrepresenting africanfuturism and I will make sure my writing is better researched henceforth.

Afrofuturism became quite the buzzword when the first Black Panther movie was released in 2018. Even in a narratively homogeneous space like the MCU, Black Panther was able to stand out, not just because of skin colour of the cast, but the sheer vibrancy of African culture that it managed to showcase in 2 hours and 14 minutes of screentime. And a large part of the artistic motivation behind the design and costumes (both of which were nominated for Oscars) was the imagining of an African nation that had never been colonized by European powers. 

My introduction to Africanfuturism was through Nnedi Okorafor’s oeuvre. All of her work is phenomenal - every short story, novella, series, even her tweets. Nnedi is in fact also the writer on the Shuri series of comics that follow the adventures of the Wakandan Princess. One of the most impactful reads for me in recent years, Nnedi’s novel Who Fears Death - set in a post-Apocalyptic Sudan tackles some heavy themes - like rape as a weapon of war, FGM and ancestral magic as a way of reclaiming power and identity in a futuristic wasteland. 

Nnedi Okorafor, and Periwinkle Chukwu the Cat (who FYI has his own Twitter and Graphic Novel): Image Source: The Guardian

To be honest, I hated the story’s protagonist Onyesonwu (her name means “who fears death" in Igbo and that’s where the book gets its title) when I started reading the book. But then the narrative slammed me in the gut so hard that I couldn’t put Onyesonwu’s story down. To this day, I can’t articulate where that shift in my perception happened, but it’s an experience I wholeheartedly recommend.

Bookcovers for Shuri: The Search for Black Panther and Who Fear Death by Nigerian author Nnedi Okorafor. Image Source: Amazon
 

If you haven’t realized by now, cultural futurism is a special interest of mine.

It all started with the anime Psycho-Pass (another very special interest of mine, which we will not be getting into now. Probably.) Psycho-Pass is a Japanese cyberpunk psychological thriller created by Urobochi Gen with characters designed by Amano Akira. Some have described it as Criminal Minds, 2115. The central idea is that Japan is governed by an AI called the Sybil System, which issues a psycho-pass to every citizen. And this psycho-pass essentially live tracks their mental status and propensity to commit crimes. The protagonists are detectives with the Public Safety Bureau - an extant government body in Japan today - who are tasked with apprehending and delivering justice to latent criminals through one of the craziest sci-fi weapons I have ever come across, appropriately named - the Dominator.

But although the gun is very important, for me the real attraction to the material was seeing how Japanese creators see their society evolving with respect to mental illness, neurodivergence and mental well-being. Stresscare is a recurring motif in the series. Even the detectives have been trained in it and providing it to victims at the site of crimes is one of their primary duties. But at the same time, anyone incapable of dealing with stress - that is to say anyone who is not happy and productive all the time - is ostracized. 

Psycho-Pass (the first season came out in 2013) was heavily inspired by sci-fi noir from the West - most notable examples being Minority Report (2002) - a story about predicting and stopping crime before it happens through the use of precognition and Bladerunner (1982) - a story about becoming and being the thing that society despises. 

First Release Posters for Minority Report and Bladerunner: Image Source: IMDB

Predictive policing in the real world has been around since the early aughts. But the face it wears is mainly that of mass surveillance under the guise of safety protocols. Such methodologies have universally been criticized for racial profiling, economic gatekeeping and just all round discrimination. Yet they continue to be used without such failings being accounted for. But the interesting thing here for me, is not the academic discourse or governmental apathy. It’s the cultural responses to it.

In America, law enforcement is the subject of much debate. As is everything. There are calls to defund the police and shift focus to social services that can improve things such as mental health, addiction, and homelessness. The mention of technology in such spaces is scant. I remember reading last year that most police departments had washed their hands off of predictive policing systems, because they didn’t lead to reduction of crime. But in 2020, PredPol - the creator of the technology - was named in the GovTech100 List for the fifth year running. After which it underwent a nice little makeover to come out as Geolitica: Trusted Services for Safer CommunitiesTM <insert cheery ding-dong music here>

Backbone Campaign: Defund the Police projections in Seattle. Image Source: Flickr

In India, Twitter went crazy when the Delhi police started using facial recognition tech in order to identify alleged “rabble rousers and miscreants” during the CAA-NRC protests. That was in 2019 though. The year that saw the Netflix adaptation of Prayaag Akbar’s dystopian novel Leila by Deepa Mehta. Three years down the line, we actually have surveillance systems designed to predict crime even in states like Himachal Pradesh and Jharkhand. The trail of public opinion though, as they say, has gone cold.

But don’t quote me on this. My knowledge bucket of current affairs is mostly a sieve.

Protests at Shaheen Baug, Delhi. Image Source: The Indian Express

In Singapore, human rights activist Jolovan Wham staged a solo performance of Hamlet, naked. While in solitary confinement at Changi prison. He was arrested for holding an illegal public assembly on an MRT train.

Since then, he has also been arrested for holding up a smiley face sign. 

The assembly that led to Jolovan Wham’s arrest. Image Source: Todayonline.com

Probably Relevant Side-Note: Since we are on the topic of Singapore, I did want to share this artist’s (also referred to as breakout star in this Homegrown article) work. Rajid Ahmed (stage name, Yung Raja) is a twenty-something rapper, model, fashion designer and a bunch of other things I couldn’t find suitable terms for.

To be honest I don’t know how this video makes me feel. I didn’t even know Yung Raja performed at NH7 this year. I also have no idea what he is saying. Or doing. But I certainly can’t look away. In a way, it represents an Asian futurism that is unabashedly multicultural and queer. Note, I am not making assumptions about Mr Raja, just using the word queer in a sociopolitical sense. But mostly, it’s an interesting juxtaposition against the work of Jolovan Wham that also originates from the same geography. 

 

Hopefully by now, you see where I am going with this take on cultural futurism.

It’s more than just a reading of science fiction and geeking out over robots that are overcome by their emotions (a very anti-ND trope which I also will not be getting into right now.) For me cultural futurism is a framework to see where different groups and sub-groups of people see themselves heading and how they feel about where they are now. 

In this Nautilus article - Why Futurism has a Cultural Blindspot by Tom Vanderbilt, the author says “when it comes to culture we tend to believe not that the future will be very different than the present day, but that it will be roughly the same.” To a certain extent, this is true. Look at most of our science-fiction - detectives are still using psychoanalysis to catch serial killers while serial-smoking cigarettes, people still get married and go to work and have families in overwhelmingly normative ways and religious cults still form around aristocratic men with suave accents. 

But what this opinion assumes is that the people dreaming up the future all uniformly have lives free of systemic restraints. That we are all living the life we want to be living. That we all can. And given the homogeneity of the writers and thinkers referenced by the article, I think I understand how that may have happened.

WeRNative - a portal run by Native American youth, makes this point, “In mainstream science fiction, Native people are virtually non-existent. Yet many science fiction stories are actually about colonialism.” It’s stunning how this should be obvious to everyone, but clearly not many of us read between the lines.

 

Indigenous Futurism often asks the question, how would this land be if it had never been colonized?

What freedoms, histories and technologies would have come to be in the absence of a foreign culture’s domination and indoctrination? What would homes look like, what clothes would we wear, what songs would we teach the children if we never knew about Mary’s frisky little lamb? 

In his primer titled Adivasi Futurism, Subash Thebe Limbu, a Yakthung (Limbu) artist from eastern Nepal who works with sound, film, music, performance, painting and podcast says, “Indigenous Futurism gives Indigenous writers, artists, filmmakers and other creative practitioners a chance to imagine and carry out thought experiments and see themselves in the future, practising Indigenous knowledge, ideas along with science and technology. Like Afrofuturism, it shifts the narrative from colonized, oppressed and marginalised to representation, progress and liberation, from tokenism to leading voices, from vanishing races to hyper-advanced nations.”

This is the trailer for the artist’s first film - Ningwasum is a Yakthung science fiction documentary narrated by Miksam, a time traveller from a future Indigenous Nation. It’s the reclaiming of the narrative that seems to be the key here. Not just of the past but also of the imagined future. 

 

In the same vein, Queer Futurism asks us to imagine a world not constrained by normativity.

I remember reading a book while staying on a friend’s couch in the seeder parts of London. It was about a planet where falling in love with or pursuing a relationship with a person of the opposite gender was a sin and punishable by death. That was my first encounter with queer futurism. And then just this past week, I remotely attended a workshop happening live in Berlin, Cruising Galaxies: a Creative Writing Workshop on Queer-Sci-fi Utopia Construction co-curated by Irem Aydin, a theatremaker from Istanbul and Oliver Kontny, Iranian and Turkic studies scholar. From discussing the earliest works of Sci-fi - Frankenstein by Mary Shelley (1818) and Sultana’s Dream by Rokeya Shakhawat Hossain (1908). Point to be noted, Mary Shelley was a famously self-confessed bisexual and Begun Rokeya gives off ace-vibes from miles away. But, that’s just my opinion. To understand a bit of the impact her work has had on us, check out this heartwrenchingly stunning collection of visions, utopias and dreams inspired by it - Queer Muslim Futures - curated by Rafiul Alom Rahman, illustrated by Reya Ahmed and written and compiled by Maniza Khalid, published by The Queer Muslim Project. Back to the workshop though. The writing exercises started off with each of us designing our spaceships and went on to get us all to write out how we would help asylum-seekers integrate into our utopias. Even if those seeking refuge were individuals we despise in this life.

You may have noticed utopias as a recurring theme here. A lot of queer futurism does deal with the creation of queer utopias. Take, for instance…

The San Junipero episode from Black Mirror

Or

Boys Love literature and film from Japan, China, the Philippines, Thailand (No shade to the Sapphics - so here’s some Girls Love for you, with love from the Philippines and Korea

Or

The vibrant discourse and queershipping fandoms that abound on Tumblr and Archive of Our Own

Probably Relevant Side-Note: On the topic of Tumblr, I once read a post that quickly became a community-generated story, about the robot apocalypse. Robots (I think it was an alien robot race?) shoot down every human in order to take control of the Earth. But the only people they spare are the children and people with disabilities. Because they see things like pacemakers, insulin pumps, hearing devices, wheelchairs, braces, even canes and glasses as tech mods - so humans with disability devices are like cyborg-kin. And thus are welcome to rise with the machines. It made me cry. 

And then I cried again, when I couldn’t find the original post to link here. Tumblr truly is a whirlpool of oceanic proportions. And because I cried so much, it’s only fair that I get to place this image here for consolation purposes. 

Image Source: BLWatcher.com

Even Love Shore, the game I started this article with - which despite its dystopian setting, is quite utopian in the unquestioned queerness of it’s characters. Also, like in Love Shore, reproduction is often a theme of exploration in queer futuristic work. Even Frankenstein for that matter, took on the topic of the creation of life and the moralities that surround it. I mean, it’s not surprising, because the creation of children is the prime weapon traditionalists use to beat queers with. The birth of the chosen one is like a legit trope in a lot of traditional sci-fi and fantasy. Which is why it was so very satisfying to hear Oliver talk about how “Chosen family is better that the Chosen One.”

But utopian thought is not just about creating blissed out states of acceptance and found families. In the introduction of the anthology A Critical Inquiry into Queer Utopias, Angela Jones, author of Camming: Money, Power, and Pleasure in the Sex Work Industry notes that, “we recognize that queer futurity is not so much about crafting prescriptions for a utopian society—in which everyone is happy and life is ideal—but by making life more bearable in the present because in doing so we create the potential for a better future.” 

 

And it’s this potential that lies at the heart of all cultural futurism. 

I am going to end this mildly self-indulgent rant by going back to Gil Santos’ Ted Talk. He talks about how when one asks an average Filipino about the future, their response is “Bahala na” which roughly translates to “whatever happens, happens.” But this is not just a colloquial phrase, it’s apparently a cultural philosophy. And we know that this is not a philosophy limited to the Philippines. I wonder if it’s time we raise the processes, principles and questions of cultural futurism against the Bahala na-ism of our collective consciousness. 

What would happen then? 

What world could we create together? 

And who would find place in the stories we tell about ourselves a hundred years from now?

 
 

A non-exhaustive list of works, artists, makers, thinkers, writers etc. aka A Starter’s Guide to Cultural Futurism by Hina Sid:

Probably Relevant Disclaimer:

  1. I have done my best to include things that I have played or read. But some of them are on my to-experience list as well.

  2. I am severely restricted by my language options. So please let me know of things from languages other than English, Hindi and possibly Japanese.

  3. If you come to this list from a space of reading mainly the likes of Tolkien, Asimov, Bradbury or watching things like Star Wars, Star Trek, the 100, Dune etc these recommendations may be a bit of a jarring experience. It certainly was the case for me. Because conventional reading lists subliminally train you to expect a certain structure and the use of specific narrative devices. Your reaction may be to dismiss the work. I certainly started that way. When that happens, from the bottom of my heart, I recommend that you stick with the process and examine where your need to rate these pieces as not up to the mark comes from.

Afrofuturistic Works: 

Games: 

Aurion: Legacy of the Kori-Odan by Kiro’o Studios in Cameroon. It’s an action RPG that uses the tale of a dispossessed royal couple fighting to reclaim their throne to tell a tale of Africa’s journey to independence, spirituality and feminism.

We are the Caretakers by Heart Shaped Studios in the US squad management strategy RPG about protecting endangered animals and your planet from extinction, where you could potentially lead a revolution while protecting very cute animals. 

Webtoon:

Outcasts of Jupiter sent in Morocco, 3125. 

Music / Video 

Janelle Monae’s super queer-futuristic emotion picture Dirty Computer 

 

Indofuturistic Works:

Harvest, a play by Manjula Padmanabhan, that was written in the 90’s and explores the topic of organ trafficking in a futuristic India. Also a lot of other work by Majula Padmanabhan. My favourite among them being this little piece called Cool - about robots and little boys - appearing in Eat the Sky, Drink the Ocean, a feminist speculative fiction collection, born of a collaboration between Australian and Indian writers.

Space architecture and exocolonial vibes by Interdisciplinary Design Research startup IOVR that was founded on the premise of technological innovation flirting with new media narratives.

Activating Indofuturism: Applying a lens adapted from Postcolonial Futurisms: A Master of Design Thesis by Priya Bandodkar

Art by Osheen Shiva: Through the lens of surrealism, speculative fiction and science fiction and rooted in their Dalit and Tamil heritage, Siva imagines new worlds of decolonized dreamscapes, futuristic oasis with mutants and monsters and narratives of queer and feminine power.

Folk SciFi by Vimal Chandran: A series of artworks with reimagined myths and characters from native folklores in a Science fiction environment

5 Indian science fiction authors who will lead you into enthralling new realms | Vogue India

 

Pakistani Futurism:

The art and gaming worlds of Omar Gilani

Muslim Futurism:

The superbly queer futuristic art, drag performances, installation work, textile work and so much more Queer Futuristic work by Zulfikar Ali Bhutto Jr (yes, the name is not a coincidence)

Frankenstein in Baghdad by Ahmad Saadawi, a book that navigates war, terrorism and occupation in modern-day Iraq with themes of dystopian futurism, mysticism and yes, even the meaning of creating life.

 

Indigenous Futurism:

The Wondros Podcast run by Grace L. Dillon (Anishinaabe) - who literally coined the term indigenous futurism - is a great space to start getting acquainted with the ideas in this space as is her book: Walking the Clouds: An Anthology of Indigenous Science Fiction. 

Full Metal Indigiqueer by Joshua Whitehead, an Oji-Cree, Two-Spirit storyteller and academic from Peguis First Nation on Treaty 1 territory in Manitoba

Never Alone (Kisima Inŋitchuŋa), a video game by Upper One Games that leans more into the mythological and fantasy elements of indigenous futurism. It is an atmospheric puzzle platformer that follows the journey of Nuna and Fox as they search for the source of an eternal blizzard. And it was developed in collaboration with the Iñupiat, an Alaska Native people. 

The art of Gordon Hookey, an Australian aboriginal artist from the Waanyi people

The art of Mayur and Tushar Vayeda, from the indigenous Warli community in western India

 

Queer Futuristic Works:

Light from Uncommon Stars a book by Ryka Aoki, where a runaway trans girl, a harvester of souls for hell, and a family of refugee alien doughnut makers collide in unexpected and wondrous ways

8 of the Best Queer Science Fiction Books, as recommended by Book Riot

A Long Journey to an Uncertain End by Crispy Creative Studios in LA is a narrative management space opera where you recruit eclectic crew members, explore the known - and unknown - galaxy, make choices to drive your journey, and escape the clutches of your abusive ex. Demo available on Steam now.

Art Now Thus
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