Past Present Future
Tomorrow never knows or the thousand dreams of Stella Brennan, as observed by Andrew Paul Wood. 104 urbis I SUMMER 2004 ince at least the 1936 film version of H.G. Wells’ The Shape of Things to Come, science fiction has depicted future interior design as a series of minimalist white interiors of Sthe Walter Gropius/Mies van der Rohe pattern. After Stanley Kubrick’s 1968 film, 2001: A Space Odyssey, the form became set, complete with 1960s biomorphic furniture. This in turn influenced interior design of the time. The trend has more-or-less continued to this day, a notable example being Andrew Niccol’s 1997 film GATTACA with its stylised retro-modernist 1940s decor. But is this really what the future looks like, or just what the movies tell us it should look like? It all looks a bit retro now, a bit kitsch – but if imaginary futuristic interiors aren’t informing contemporary design, they are informing contemporary art. Take the work of Stella Brennan (left), for instance, and her impressive portfolio of recent works. The Auckland-based artist, writer and curator’s 2003 project, Dirty Pixels, toured Auckland, Wellington, Dunedin and Hamilton. Another installation, Theme for Great Cities, showed at Ramp Gallery at Wintec in Hamilton. Her work also featured in Everyday Minimalism at the Auckland Art Gallery. Her installation, Tomorrow Never Knows, showed at Auckland’s Starkwhite gallery in April 2004, and Christchurch’s Physics Room in May 2004. Tomorrow Never Knows is based on J.G. Ballard’s collection of short stories, Vermilion Sands (1971), a future sprawling resort-cum- artists’ colony sandwiched between a vast desert and a barren coast.
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