If the technology existed, I'd say go ahead and add my consciousness to the cloud. Heck, if it’s possible, I’d like to download this messy brain into a giant robot (or maybe just a regular human-size one). If it’s warranty-protected, I’ll take whatever works. And if I can program my new exoskeleton to execute some sick dance moves, so much the better.
Maybe that’s the privilege of a writing gig talking. I’m good so long as I’m healthy and able enough to keep pecking at my laptop, gradually developing scoliosis in the process (another reason to be pro-brain upload). But for someone whose passion and profession relies on their expertly trained body — a dancer, let’s say — I get why the premise of an increasingly virtual future might provoke an existential crisis. And that concept is the springboard for a new sci-fi series, arriving on CBC Gem this week.
Future Futures is a collection of five experimental dance films: fantasy stories about the beginning of a new era of human evolution. “Real” people have become obsolete in this imaginary world, and it’s possible to trade the meat suit you were born with for a superpowered digital replacement.
The show was created by Vancouver dance collective Company 605 through the Creation Accelerator program. Dreams in Vantablack, also on CBC Gem, was greenlit through the same initiative. According to one of Company 605's artistic directors (Josh Martin), the "digital migration" of the early lockdown served as creative fodder for the Future Futures team. As he explained in a statement, “The fact that we had this sci-fi project underway was so eerily timed and painfully relevant.… It felt like the future was now! We were asking ourselves: how will we bring our physical body with us into this inevitable digitally bound future? Or is it just something lost in our human evolution?”
Future Futures premieres Monday. |
