Bruce Sterling: Gothic Chic in the Future Favela

I'm linking to this loose transcript of Bruce Sterling's talk.

This phrase digital favela and high tech gothic is my own shorthand description of a future state inspired by the discussion around this, and a reformulation of what Sterling actually said:

Now we need to comprehend the teens…today. My intuition is that the teens offer two categories of historical experience. What’s it like? Gothic high tech and favela chic. These two cultural sensibilities are not here yet.

The digital favela aesthetic might be close to what today is known as solarpunk. Think a bio-engineered algae that gives off light, mesh networks, and custom Raspberry Pi micro servers, amidst an artist squat, temporary spaces, or yes, even the poorest of favelas.

High tech gothic is shiny glass towers, gated communities, cement brutalism. Nothing but the right people, waving smart phones or key cards. Everything is clean but rather sanitized. Conform or get kicked out.

Quotes

The next decade we’re entering into the teens. It’s a decade inhabited by digital natives, rather than digital revolutionaries, though this is something that has already happened. It’s already behind us, after 1989, when we switched from analogue to digital, from actual to virtual, from scientific to user-centric, local to global, multinationals to financial moguls.

Most of my life has been spent talking about this change. This next decade is in the hands of people who don’t care about that. They don’t know what a typewriter ribbons was. They don’t remember older ways of doing things abolished by these revolutions. Digital natives are growing up in a depression, when banks make people poor, and healthcare makes people sick. Digital natives never have to be told to digitize anything. The hardware is all around. Their immediate response is to grab for a mobile or a laptop.

The driving forces of the digital revolution continue and intensify, but there is no previous order left to rebel against.

Railroad natives were bored to death by people who explained railroads as if they were impressive. They’re just there once they’re there.