Future Shock

Video installation

In 1970, American futurist Alvin Toffler’s iconic work Future Shock was published. One year later, a translation by Zhiwen Publishing House hit the market in Taiwan, thus introducing the writer’s theories to readers of Chinese.

The premise of the book can be summed up as: “A future that comes too quickly creates more apprehension than that of a foreign land. Future society will be stricken with a plethora of choices, throw-away society, information overload, and unethical technology.”

The work Future Shock was inspired by Toffler’s original, from which the artist adapted and developed Toffler’s theories. The artist decided to shoot the film in the southern city of Kaohsiung for its industrial facilities, modernist architecture, power plants, commercial institutions, and deserted amusement parks, which were driven by economic policies in the 1970s, but today evoke feelings of strangeness and nostalgia for the city’s golden age.

This past which felt so futuristic 50 years ago is now both confusing and familiar. Future Shock leads audience members to revisit retro Kaohsiung from a contemporary perspective and look back as if in a dream at the influence of “modern” and “future” when they were completely new concepts in Asia.