Generative Art Timeline · Chapter 2: Modern Era (1850–1949)

1909

E. M. Forster's The Machine Stops

Publication · Europe

Dora Carrington’s painted profile of E. M. Forster, with blue eyes, brown hair and a dark purple coat against a softly colored interior.
E. M. Forster in Dora Carrington’s 1920 portrait, painted after the 1909 publication of “The Machine Stops.” Dora Carrington, E.M. Forster, 1920, oil on canvas. National Portrait Gallery, London (NPG 4698); given by Frances Catherine Partridge (née Marshall), 1969. Reproduction © National Portrait Gallery, London, via Wikimedia Commons; photographer not identified. Image source.

There have always been twin views on technology and where it's leading us. Even a hundred years ago writers like H. G. Wells wrote of tech utopias while E. M. Forster was decidedly less optimistic.

In Forster's story “The Machine Stops,” humanity lives underground in identical rooms, each person's needs met by a global Machine. This immediately recalls contemporary futuristic visions of this dystopia, like Fallout and Silo.

It also eerily predicted more contemporary afflictions like video calls and blackboxes, as in Forster's story people rarely meet; they talk through screens and trade ideas second hand. When the Machine begins to fail and no one remembers how to repair it, a religion grows up around its manual. At least we have something to look forward to.

Text by Peter Bauman. Generative Art Timeline, Le Random.

Sources

People

E. M. Forster, H. G. Wells

Movements

artificial intelligence

Filed under

Ideas
dystopia, science fiction, technology
People
E. M. Forster, H. G. Wells
Works
The Machine Stops

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