Speculative Future

In a very probable post-speculative future where there is little to no free space for further resource production and countries around the globe face severe overcrowding, what do the governments turn to? These governments have no choice but to take complete and private ownership of all public, natural green spaces we enjoy as a society. This entails the complete restriction of parks, national parks, and all other green spaces from public use. Corporations and businesses must use these green spaces for resource production and the development of mass production farming technology to keep up with the rapid growth in population. Because of the complete restriction of natural spaces, humans in this future are only familiar with nature in the digital realm.

 

Presented are three artifacts that are to exist in this speculative future. The first, being a digital application used globally to explore different biomes of the once thriving natural world. This application, trUeNature, provides humans with an at-home experience of being immersed in the once publicly open biomes, provides educational programs on animal and plant species, and poses a solution to the humans being deprived of nature in overcrowded communities. 

 

The second artifact is a piece of technology that can be used alongside the trUeNature application called Therapy-X. This technology gives its user an even more realistic at-home experience, having the user sit inside and be fully immersed in the biome chosen within the application. Its features include sensory technology that fully surrounds the user with a high definition screen, a temperature gauge to match the climate of the environment chosen by the user, and technology that releases select scents. This artifact introduces the idea of commerce and class in this speculative world, being that it can only be obtained by people of wealth and is a ploy for people to get closer to the real experience of nature.

 

The third artifact introduces the idea of government policy and censorship, as well as protest and rebellion from the public. The private property sign is hand-painted, documented and photographed by myself, and the graffiti is photoshopped on top. This sign would be placed at entryways or along fences of national parks and blocked off green spaces. Naturally, protesters would graffiti and destroy these signs in effort to question the intentions of government officials. This establishes socio-political issues in this future, making it ultimately more applicable to our climate crisis and human desire to explore nature.