Building Utopia

At the start of a new year, the future seems uncertain.  

The recent holiday release of the Cyberpunk 2077 video game had me curious about a perceived collective hunger for visions of the future.  Games and movies seem to replay dark dystopia scenarios.  It's easy to see these dim visions regurgitated in contemporary culture.  As I write this the news is bleak proof.   

When I look at the recent Cyberpunk game I see appealing commercial visuals and slick surface treatments.  But I also see a brutal attitude that has become so pervasive that it's accepted as the norm.   Sometimes when looking at contemporary culture I wonder if art imitates life or vice versa.  

Sometimes it seems like the dominant culture is one that celebrates nihilism.  I know why this is so appealing.  Maybe violent games serve as a fantasy arena to play out our darkest impulses and express them instead of bringing them into the real world. 

When I William Gibson's Neuromancer, an early Cyberpunk source, it seemed like he had predicted the 2016 -2020 era.  As much as I enjoyed that book, I wondered if we could strive for a brighter future. 

I kept my eyes open for the alternatives.   I know there are many: the solarpunk movement, team human, the game Samrost 3, just to name a totally random chosen few.

I also wanted to build another alternative.  So in 2019 I started working on Dance Planet.  This setting is my naive attempt at trying to dress up all of my goofy optimism inside the wrapping papers of pop culture influences.  

So Dance Planet is the seed of my vision for the future.  An escape to a world of optimistic cosmic funk.