Science Museum, London
Closes 4 May 2023
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LONDON鈥橲 Science Museum has come up with a solution to the age-old problem of how to keep visitors from bunching up while they navigate an exhibition.
In an awkward corner of Science Fiction: Voyage to the edge of imagination, ALANN (short for Algorithmic Artificial Neural Network) announces that all the air is about to leave the room 鈥� sorry, 鈥渄eck鈥�. To avoid the hard vacuum of outer space, it asks that you please move along.
Little fillips of jeopardy enliven this whistle-stop tour of science, technology and imagination. It isn鈥檛 so much an exhibition about science fiction itself 鈥� London had that in 2017 with the Barbican鈥檚 superb Into the Unknown 鈥� as it is an experience that creates its own sci-fi.
The gallery is arranged as a story, which begins once a Pan Galactic Starlines shuttle drops us aboard an alien craft, the Azimuth. The Azimuth鈥檚 friendly, if bemused, resident AI is orbiting Earth and pondering the curious nature of human progress, which puts imagination and storytelling ahead of practical action.
It seems to ALANN 鈥� who jumps from screen to screen, keeping us company throughout 鈥� that using stories to imagine the future is a weirdly double-edged way of going about things. Humans could just as easily be steering towards nightmares as happy outcomes. What will their future hold?
ALANN bottles that question in the end, of course: our destiny turns out to be 鈥渦ncomputable鈥�. Oh, how I wish for a show that had punters running screaming for the exits! Isn鈥檛 that what sci-fi is for?
Assembled on a low budget, and featuring not a whole lot of film props, costumes and replicas, which never looked that good at the best of times, this 鈥渧oyage to the edge of imagination鈥� stands or falls by its wits. Next to a cheery video about communicating with humpback whales as a rehearsal for alien 鈥渇irst contact鈥�, some bright spark has placed a life-size xenomorph from the film Alien. Iron Man鈥檚 helmet is close by, too, promoting our eventual 鈥渃yborgisation鈥�, the melding of metal and flesh to better handle our technological future 鈥� but so, mind you, is Darth Vader鈥檚 helmet.
The sheer lack of stuff here is disconcerting, yet by the end of the exhibition, we have explored space, bent space-time, communicated with aliens and become post-human, so clearly the experience is well-crafted. Imagine an excellent nest constructed from three sticks.
Sci-fi鈥檚 imaginative and philosophical richness is better revealed in the fabulous by project curator Glyn Morgan. It features interviews with influential writers and commentators, like Charlie Jane Anders and Chen Qiufan.
This being the Science Museum, it is hardly surprising that the exhibition鈥檚 final spaces are given over to pondering the practical utility of sci-fi. For this, futurologist is on screen to explain how fiction can be used to prototype ideas before they arrive in the real world. Sci-fi writers already have a word for this: they call it plagiarism.
But whether you give credence to Johnson鈥檚 belief that sci-fi is there to make the world a better place is more of a glass-half-full, glass-half-empty sort of question.
In a cabinet nearby are some copies of Marvel Comics鈥檚 Captain Planet and the Planeteers. In the 1990s, we are told, Captain Planet 鈥渆mpowered a new generation to be environmentally aware鈥�. As someone who was there, I promise you that he jolly well didn鈥檛.
But as I turned the next corner, the sneer still on my lips, I saw as fine an example of transformative imagination-in-action as you could wish for. Tilly Lockey, who has been wearing bionic arms since she was 8 years old, had been invited along to the press launch, and was skipping about, taking photos of her friend. In the gloom, I couldn鈥檛 quite see which arms she was wearing 鈥� the ones based on the Deus Ex video game series or the ones designed by the team behind the film Alita: Battle Angel.
In any case, that was me told. Tilly鈥檚 bionic arms are as much the result of sci-fi-inspired design as technical innovation: an example of how sci-fi can be applied to make life better.
