Upon the completion of a creative project, I find it helpful to make an assessment of what degree it reached its aims. In this Web Log, I will do that for 3 videos of readings I made under the title of ‘Future Stories’. They can be found on my Instagram account. The structure of my analysis will be in two parts: Content, then Form. While this might be an unhelpful binary in most instances, it will help simplify this exercise.
Content
I wanted to write some short stories about the future. This is because I find the future to be a scary place. But in a kind of nebulous way. I can’t always put my finger on what exactly it is that I’m scared of, other than it seems broadly like Things are trending downhill.
In order to force myself out of this blurry repressed terror, I wanted to specify some possibilities, some little situations someone might find themselves in. These were not to be particularly serious or likely scenarios. The ‘worldbuilding’ of these stories was to be brief, departed from quickly, so as to not... make a scene. Just enough for things to be different from now, but without the overwrought exactitudes that science fiction can tend towards.
I hoped instead to set up situations in which one or two things had gone quite wrong. In the first one (Day Thief), there is a plague of giant insects, and a robbery takes place. In the second one (Kumquat Moonshine), climactic geoengineering has taken place, and food supply chains have diminished in scope. In the third (The King’s Folly), a feudal village’s King has gone mad.
Do I think these stories were successful in tapping into my anxieties about the future, with their approach of gentle speculation and a softly humorous tone?
I’m unsure. I think the distance allowed by the vagueness of the premonitions, so as to avoid being overly declarative, came to allow me an emotional distance. I don’t feel particularly scared by any of my stories. The closest aspect to bring me to that is the geoengineering from ‘Kumquat Moonshine’, a prospect that becomes more and more real. But it was not dwelled on, or even clearly explained within the narrative.
A book I read recently suffered from similar problems I think. Scottish comedian Frankie Boyle’s ‘A Short History of the Future’ bombards the reader with such an array of vicious and debased possibilities, as if trying to anaesthetise them to lesser cruelties due in their own future. However, none of his proposals come across as particularly convincing. The comedic structures also fail to hold for the full >500 pages, leaving the text neither truly terrifying (because I cannot fully empathise with the characters) nor consistently funny.
I do think, of course, that speculative fiction is a good medium for exploring your one’s relationship with the future. But I think my approach would need tweaking before it led to any emotional catharsis.
Form
I found a large educational poster on the street about two years ago (you can read about that here). The backing to it is blue fabric. Since then, I have wanted to use it as a Chroma Key background, to do green screen movie magic. Since violating my rental agreement and hanging the weighty hanging on two meaty screws, I have been able to use it for this. The quality of the effect is not especially high, due to variable sunbleaching of the blue fabric, as well as poor lighting setups. Regardless, it has been enjoyable to use for this purpose, using this tool, made accessible by resourcefulness and capital improvements, has allowed me an additional narrative tool, even if its efficacy is low. It is quick, dirty, and sweet.
I enjoyed the format of a reading in front of a slideshow. I like multimedia work. I think the images brought additional emphasis to words I wanted to highlight. It is better to watch as a result, even if perhaps that is motivated by creating a piece that more easily transmits to social media. I would however like to work on my delivery. I took almost a town crier approach to the performance, which was fun, but didn’t necessarily suit all moments of the three pieces. More time spent practicing and planning this element of the reading will leave me feeling less reliant on the multimedia access to hold the viewer’s attention.