Ken's Blog

As long as we are talking about the future, I wonder whether there is any reasonable way to create an interesting taxonomy of possible futures. The trivial statement on this subject might be: “Any future is possible, therefore all futures must be considered.”

But that’s not a very interesting view. Some possible futures are highly unlikely. In the next few years we will probably not invent time travel, the faster than light drive, or antigravity. I’m not saying these things are impossible. Just that, based on what we currently know, they are highly improbable.

But some other things, such as the likely effects of global warming, or the continuing influence of Moore’s Law on our daily life, are much more understandable. And these factors could be used to sketch out a sort of rough road map of possible futures.

Perhaps we need a kind of Wikipedia of the future. A set of reference pages that people can turn to, or add to, so that we can build a collective consensus as to what might be in store for us. And maybe even be able to do something about it.

Is that asking too much?

Speaking of ghosts, I am struck by how well immersive virtual reality lends itself to ghost stories. And I don’t mean the sort of thumb twiddling VR that’s currently being pushed by certain large companies, where you sit all day in front of a computer.

I mean the kind of VR that we are prototyping at NYU, where you get up on your feet and wander around the real world, a world with actual doors and desks and physical things — except that the real world has been utterly transformed, made to look like another place entirely, a place where magic is possible.

An analogy we’ve been using in our discussions here is with Punchdrunk’s Sleep No More. That’s an immersive non-linear narrative experience in which you wander — with your physical body, and on your own two feet – through a mysterious hotel where fragments of connected stories are taking place all around you.

Since Sleep No More uses traditional technologies, those stories can only be acted out by physical present performers and dancers. But what if that restriction were lifted?

The result would be a powerful medium for telling fantastical stories — ghost stories in particular. Creatures could materialize right in front of you, characters could walk through walls or float though the air, mirrors could cast altered reflections — or reflections from another room entirely.

We all have our own ghost stories to tell. And we may just be about to get a better way to tell them.

Today, unexpectedly, I ran into somebody I hadn’t seen in twelve years. When we had last seen each other, things were not ok between us. In fact, things were very not ok between us. And after that, there was no communication at all.

To see this person again after so much time, without warning, was a strange feeling, and not a pleasant one. I was filled with an odd combination of shock, fear and surprise. Pretty much what I imagine it might be like to see a ghost.

I felt, in that one moment, the accumulated weight of more than a decade of unresolved emotions, an accordion-like compression of countless hours of agonized soul searching.

I don’t think I showed outwardly any of the complex emotions I felt. It was a very brief encounter.

Being human is complicated, and sometimes difficult. How much simpler to be a blue balloon, floating through the city, breezing in and out of subway cars, with not a care in the world.

Today, as I was waiting for the express train uptown, I saw a blue balloon wander onto the platform. I’m not sure where it came from — it may have sailed across the tracks.

It was one of those helium filled toy balloons, except that this one was clearly nearing the end of its aerial life. It was hovering about two or three feet in the air, just high enough to lift most of its string.

After I got on the train, I saw, to my surprise, the same balloon floating up the aisle toward me. Along with the other passengers, I watched, astonished, as it meandered here and there, wandering from person to person. Then, as the doors were about to close, it drifted toward the door nearest to me. I thought for a moment it would stay with us, but at the very last second, just as the doors were closing, it darted out, dragging its string behind, and was gone.

As the train pulled out of the station, I found myself grinning. I looked around to see whether anybody else was as enchanted as I was. An older hispanic man, wearing a fedora, was also smiling ear to ear. He and I made eye contact.

“It came in that door over there,” he said to me, pointing excitedly, “drifted up the aisle toward us, then scooted out this door here.”

“Maybe,” I suggested, “it was waiting for the local.”

We all love a good novel, a compelling play, a movie that transports us to another world. Stories are the life blood of entertainment, and often of art.

One of the key elements of a work of fiction is that it is, indeed, fiction. There was no actual historical Hamlet, or Elizabeth Bennet, or Holden Caulfield. These people never existed, except in the mind of a brilliant author.

Of course there are also stories out there about real people. Stories about people like Albert Einstein, Marie Curie, Albert Schweitzer. These tales of challenge and accomplishment in the real world have their own appeal.

Yet it seems that as a general rule we prefer the fictional characters, the heroes who emerge from the fevered brain of an inspired author.

What is it about us that makes us more willing to recognize truth when it is contained in a story about made up people?

The Supreme Court decision was pretty darned cool. It doesn’t happen too often, but every once in a while, love and understanding can win out over fear.

It’s also good to know, amid all the violence and hatred in the world, that this planet can sometimes become a slightly more caring and civil place to live.

I think I’ll give our President the last word on this, since he said it so well yesterday, in a different, much sadder context:

“Justice grows out of recognition of ourselves in each other; that my liberty depends on you being free, too.” — Barack Obama, in his eulogy for Reverend and Democratic state Senator Clementa Pinckney, Friday, June 26, 2015

“Intersubjectivity” has many meanings. I like the definition once proposed by Mark Rothko, in the context of live performance: that I know that you know that I am performing for you.

Note that this definition encompasses all of theatre, and none of cinema, all live musical performances, but no musical recordings. It invokes the virtuous cycle between performer and audience. The interaction between the one and the other creates a sort of infinite loop of emotional feedback.

Today during a wide-ranging lunch conversation with Dakota Powell, I had occasion to bring up Rothko’s definition. She has been a pioneer in creating live theatre that transcends physical locality. In her work, actors in one geographic location are projected — in real time — to another location, and audiences therefore respond to performances that are co-located in time, but not in space.

One of the problems with this sort of thing has been the difficulty of providing proper audience feedback to remotely located performers. When you are acting from far away, it can be hard for you to have a good back-channel from the audience.

Recent developments in virtual and augmented reality might change this. Once we have the ability to provide rich audience feedback to actors who are performing in real time, but from a distance, then we will be able to extend Rothko’s notion of intersubjectivity.

“Theatre”, in the full sense of that word, will no longer be restricted to a single geographic location. Rich live performances, informed by audience response, will be able to span the globe.

I am disturbed by the sheer diversity of young terrorists living within our nation’s borders. Only a matter of days before Dzhokhar Tsarnaev was sentenced to death for his participation in the horrific bombing at the Boston Marathon, Dylann Root murdered nine fellow Americans in cold blood in a church.

Both young men are 21.

Although both crimes are monstrous, there are differences. For one thing, Tsarnaev actually managed to apologize for his crime. I know that’s not much, but at least it shows he is aware of the horror and pain that he caused. I somehow doubt, based on what I’ve learned so far, that we will ever hear an apology from Dylann Root.

There is a cruel irony in the fact that America, which celebrates diversity, manages to contain such a diversity of terrorists, all of whom seem to be motivated by a hatred of diversity.

Today I saw Tomorrowland, and while it is a total mess in terms of plot and pacing, it is a visual delight. Just to watch the imagery of that fantastical universe was a privilege and a total joy.

I spent much of the film in complete awe, like a saucer eyed little kid, soaking up Brad Bird’s vision of a magnificent utopian future. The sense of innocent wonder contained in the marvels up on the screen simply took my breath away.

I had pretty much the same feeling of wonder at the first big reveal of all the dinosaurs back when Jurassic Park came out. I am looking forward to seeing Jurassic World, because I understand it captures some of that same feeling of visual excitement and wonder.

Now if only they would make a movie with dinosaurs roaming around in a futuristic utopian world. Then I think I would have everything a kid could ever want.

Is that asking too much?

I’ve been thinking about that day, sometime in the future, when you and I, and everyone we know, will be wearing those cyber-context lenses.

Virtual objects will then become part of our every day reality. We will take for granted that there are objects which appear to sit on a table, stand on the floor, or just float in the air between us, yet which are “real” only in the sense that we can all see them. If we were to try to touch such an object, our hand would go right through it.

In such a world, perhaps today’s physical, tangible objects will take on a new meaning. I wonder whether we will come up with a new category for those wonderfully old-fashioned objects that you can actually pick up and touch with your hands.

And if so, what would we call them?