Visual Futurist Syd Mead ("Blade Runner," "Aliens," "Tron") reflects upon the nature of creativity and how it drives the future. Photographed in P2 High Definition, this featurette provides insight into the fascinating mind of one of the most influential artists of modern cinema and automotive design.
Visual Futurist Syd Mead ("Blade Runner," "Aliens," "Tron") reflects upon the nature of creativity and how it drives the future. Photographed in P2 High Definition, this featurette provides insight into the fascinating mind of one of the most influential artists of modern cinema and automotive design.
2 Comments
The quality of the video is really stunning. Nice questions raised, too, from someone who has spent a lot of time thinking about the future and impacting how the rest of us think about it.
Blade Runner vs Biomorphic Biosphere
Syd Mead always impresses me whenever I hear him speak. He can talk and conceptualize on just about any subject, not just design or futurism and his observations are thoughtful with a precise visionary logic. As a personality he is somewhat low key but also intellectually effusive. All you have to do is wait and listen. Something interesting will be revealed by Syd.
When Blade Runner was all the rage and planners were debating BR's future LA dystopia there was a USC sponsored conference on architecture and film. I was on a panel 'Architecture and the Future' or something like that with Craig Hodgets, Syd Mead and Glen Small.
Everyone did a presentation and of course Syd was the star, the dark prince designer of Blade Runner visualizing a police sate of controlled chaos, piled sky-high debris of humanity, an toxic urban sunless world. 'When reason dreams monsters are born' said Goya
Then the counterpunch.
Glen Small projected his slides: green and sunshine bright, erotic, populated with nymphets living in giant flower shaped habitats opening onto a pastoral landscape of a depopulated LA. A utopia by way of updating Hieronymus Bosch Garden of Earthly delights.
The Q&A revealed more with Glen Small taking on some high Moral ground asking Syd Mead if he would want live in his sort of future. The fork in the road widened with each side growing suspect and apart. Syd's possible reality opposing Small's dream reality.
I think it was the first time these very different futures sat side by side and the choices so visually different. I wish that I recalled more but you get the drift.
Most of the audience applauded Mead and came down hard and dismissed as just fantasy Small's Biomorphic Biosphere. Yet in a world fast approaching the scenarios in Blade Runner should not the hope if not the goals of a possible greener Eden on earth be an alternative to fight for. A challage.
Where would you stand? The two paths are that divergent.
eric chavkin
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