Amy Kean glimpses the future at FutureFest – and it's really middle class
Over the last 12 months I've realised how obsessed people are with the future. But this isn't just about lottery numbers or the identity of your future husband.
Whether it's a glimpse of the robot apocalypse that's too many decades away for us to worry about yet, or the promise of a better, cleaner, richer world, focusing on the present seems to be a real challenge. Is it because we're fundamentally unhappy? Bored? Impatient?
What FutureFest – Nesta's crystal-ball gazing trade show – proved is that the gap between mindful and mindless is going to grow in the coming years, with technology allowing people to live more in the moment than ever, or as far from reality as possible. Apparently in the future there'll be no 'average' option, only extremes of consciousness.
The cliche on the lips of every futurologist is now 'experience'. The fascinating Future of Confectionery show from Dr Morgaine Gaye taught us that the future of food will be dominated by new textures, mouth sensations, juxtapositions and, of course, chocolate-covered insects. Although probably not for the working classes because sweets are also going to rocket in price. The future's unevenly distributed, alright!
But whilst half the population will be savouring their gas-infused water and munching on Hiccupops, the rest will be serving themselves extreme virtual experiences from the comfort of their own living room. Using a range of digital products like hugging pyjamas or the Kissinger toy that enables you to virtually kiss people via a pair of web-connected rubber lips, the need to be IRL seems to be rapidly diminishing.
Only a lucky few people (not me) got to ride Neurosis, the world's first mind-controlled ride, but it seems to be yet another excuse to venture outside the boundaries of normality. (Anyone who's seen the critically acclaimed play The Nether will have been exposed to an even more worrying layer of this mindlessness!)
Exciting, scary, exclusive, expensive... the future is definitely going to keep us on our toes. But a sobering session with Edward Snowden may have made the tomorrow-hungry crowd rethink their preoccupation with The Next. At the end of conference he announced: "One of the unexpectedly liberating things about becoming a global fugitive is you don't worry so much about tomorrow, you worry about today. Unexpectedly, I like that very much." At least one of the delegation (albeit via video link) wasn't obsessing about the future.
So as enlightening as predictions may be, perhaps what I learnt from FutureFest is that I should stop dreaming about 3D-printed sweets for five minutes and realise that today's not so bad after all.
Amy Kean is head of futures for Havas Media UK. She tweets @keano81