Big Blue Car

Societal Farming: Tech, peacetime indulgence, (consumer-driven highs) and laziness may well be the very things which accelerate our collective dumbing down. Yes, we are all getting dumber and more polarised. The Eloi, from H. G. Wells’ 1895 novel ‘The Time Machine', (HG Wells was not a particularly nice man) were weak, child-like sun dwellers. Eloi are nothing more than farmed animals, whose sole indulged existence is the dietary sustenance to the cave-dwelling Morlocks. The Morlocks were themselves driven underground by a catastrophic war and after many years developed to survive in darkness.

ELOI seemed an appropriate label for our own apparent acceptance of sleepwalking straight into the long overreach of a parent-like State which eventually swaps individual self-reliance for State dependency.

2. Norman arrives in town by damp-ridden taxi.  The Town sits under a constant fog and devastated by spiralling crime, power outages and loss of all local industry. To Norman this is all part of a normal, day-to-day experience. But in his damp and dark world he still hankers for the taste of childhood syllabub, all served on a pure white porcelain plate while resting on a cool marbled tabletop. An old hiker offers solace with an invitation to view the open countryside from his favourite gate on old Winchester Hill.

Apart from this sweet vision, all appears to be fine in the New Normal.

3. Living underground post-AI, brings with it a detachment from what it is to live above in the open air. Claustrophobia is briefly tempered by returning dreams of open skies and the sounds of the air.

One such ‘Mowlr’ has a recurring dream in which he is driving a gold-plated car at speed, dazzled by its cockpit full of jewels and lights. This one dream tempts his sanity with a false experience of a real freedom. But for the moment, he is nothing more than a human-shaped mole.