Chronicles of a Future Foretold

Aug. 17 — Sept. 14, 2018

at Zhou B Art Center — Chicago, IL

The power of speculative and science fiction in prose—such as in the works of Margaret Atwood, Emily St. John Mandel, China Miéville, and Kazuo Ishiguro—is based on the transformation of technology or science into a metaphor, not to define the future but to describe the present, to explore the existing human condition. Time travel and interstellar space have been used to explore the distance between two people. Clones and robots have helped authors speak about the human soul, or the lack of one. Dystopias and natural or man-made apocalypses—astronomical, biological, chemical, nuclear—have explored the limits of the human will to survive. Rarely has that metaphorical power of technology and science been used effectively in the context of poetry or art. – Samuel Peralta