Feb 9, 2019
The year is 420042
Alternate dystopian future
The following film and write-up is a part of an exercise to develop a wearable to augment and extend human senses for a speculative impossible satirical dystopian future. It was a part of my master’s course of New Media Design at the National Institute of Design, India
The sense chosen here is the Equilibrioception, that which helps us to balance; that which tells us what is left, right or up or down.
The year is 420042.
Lot has changed.
The time we thought we would know the answer, is here.
But the question is long forgotten and so is the hitchhiker.
Due to the technological and design interventions people have managed to survive this long. Human race is indeed scrappy.
Tigers are long gone and so are various other animals. Few remain.
Cockroaches, still there.
The Earth doesn’t look like it used to back in the 2000's.
It is called Father Earth now after the feminist movements made men redundant.
Thousands of years ago, America (formerly called The United States of America) went into a war with the oil producing nations of the world. It started pumping almost 83% of its finances into defence which led to its downfall.
The war that lasted over 300 years destroyed everything. Oil, too, was long gone.
All the other nations with their proficiency in mass production of goods and services, including people, survived.
There are no whites and blacks now. There are just people. Unified by a cause to survive.
India is a superpower now.
People have started to exhibit evolutionary traits. Pockets have started forming in the arms for keeping smart devices. Bodily hair are long gone. Devices are all the more embodied within people.
Robots emerged as our friends and do not take over the world. Robotic animals fill the void of pets.
Settlement is full on the Moon and on Mars. We are approaching Titan now. An airplane ride will take one here. There are no airplanes on the Earth and trains connect across every place. They are much more convenient.
The landscapes have changed, the weather is our worst of enemy.
The polar icecaps have melted submerging our coastal cities.
No trace of past civilisations has been left in the entire northern states.
One unified continent has emerged along the equator.
It is flanked by the Northern and the Southern Seas on either sides.
The Earth’s bulge has increased, increasing the centripetal force.
The Earth now, rotates faster.
The acceleration due to gravity has dropped down to a whopping 5.4m/s2.
This has decreased the apparent weight of everything on Father Earth.
The drastic speed of rotation of the Earth has led to a sense of leaning towards the poles for people on both the hemispheres.
Humans are incapable of sensing this tilt in order to correct it.
It could be long till evolution adapts to this.
People have developed an extension to the vestibular system.
The extension is attached to the inner ears which augments the sense of balance.
Thus maintaining Equilibrioception.
The form is inspired by the human inner ear, which is a part of the vestibular system that governs the balancing.
It is attached to the inner ear and extends its senses.
It comprises of a gyroscope which corrects the leaning of the individual.
