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© 1997 Copyright on this material is held by the authors.
Accompanied by excerpts from rare advertising and industrial films, this program takes a critical look at mid-20th-century utopian promises and persuasions. The focus will be on the landscape and the tools of everyday life: automobiles, television sets, communications tools, kitchens, and data processing equipment.
Made for the New York World's Fair (1939-40), this film shows a woman made idle by her multi-talented robot.
TO NEW HORIZONS (General Motors, 1940)
General Motors' Highways and Horizons exhibit at the New York World's Fair included the Futurama, an obsessively detailed visualization of the world of 1960. This utopian vision was centered around individual transportation and involved the complete remaking of the landscape. In many ways, this vision has come to pass.
COLOR HARMONY (Chevrolet, 1938)
In this scientific film, the march toward utopia is compared to the transition from black-and-white into color.
LOOKING AHEAD THROUGH ROHM AND HAAS PLEXIGLAS (Rohm and Haas Company, 1946)
Many futuristic visions were encouraged by the necessity to "reconvert" wartime industrial production to peacetime needs after World War II. The "Dream Suite," an all-Plexiglas living area, was the heir to wartime innovation in the business of plastics.
DESIGN FOR DREAMING (General Motors, 1956)
A visit to the Frigidaire Kitchen of the Future, which was enabled by computer technology.
A TOUCH OF MAGIC (General Motors, 1961)
The static nature of utopian visions is shown in this film, which turns futuristic technology into commercial style.
AMERICAN MAKER (Chevrolet, 1960)
This film promises futuristic innovation in daily life as an everyday, regular process.
HILLSBOROUGH WITH NEW HIDEAWAY STYLING (Radio Corporation of America, 1960)
Television attempts to reinvent itself by going into hiding.
CENTURY 21 CALLING (Bell System, 1963)
The Seattle World's Fair (1962) offered an environment for the exhibition of many new communications technologies, including those enabled by satellites.
OUT OF THIS WORLD (General Motors, 1964)
After the North American landscape had been remade in the image of "Futurama," corporate public relations required an updated vision of the future. General Motors found it under the ocean and on the moon.
YOUR HOME IS WHAT YOU MAKE IT (Whirlpool Corp., 1969)
How visions of the future were modernized to meet the expectations of a jaded culture.
MAGIC IN THE AIR (Chevrolet, 1941)
A few months after the start of commercial television broadcasting in the United States, this film proposed a world in which home entertainment hardware would replace public gatherings, and where male desire would be satisfied by electronic means.
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