An exhibition called 2062 has opened at the La Gaîté lyrique. It attempts to predict the future. I haven't seen it yet, but I can say one thing with absolute certainty: most of its predictions are wrong. The present is always a disappointing version of science fiction. Here we are in 2012. No jet pack. No android. Not even flying car. The big transport idea of the 21st century is - wait for it - free bicycles. OK, so we can talk to our phones and they answer back. But Siri is not a robot. She's a program. She can't think, therefore she isn't - n'est-ce pas, René?
The science fiction writer William Gibson says he has stopped writing about the future because the future is already here. But that can't be true. If the future were here, we'd be dressed in silver and flying to other galaxies. As it is, we can barely make it to another country, because the security at airports has made flying a pain in the arse. Leave the planet? Line 13 struggles to reach Saint-Lazare.
I suppose the Internet is futuristic. Except we use it for the same old stuff: shopping, sex and bitching about our friends. Mobile phones? Still phones. Only now we can write and take photos on them. Oh, and listen to rock music that's been around since the fifties. But perhaps all this is reassuring. The future will be just like today, only with a few more ways of wasting our time.
