If we lay no claim to our own futures, we are condemned to live in someone else's
The future is collapsing.
Until this chaotic decade reared its ugly head, it seemed history was over. Liberalism 'won'. Living standards were going to keep improving. Life expectancy was going to keep increasing. We could all look forward to a happy retirement and a comfortable life much like that of our parents and grandparents. But then, with the financial crash, the sixth mass extinction, and the exponential infiltration of new technology into every layer of society, those promises ran headlong into the reality of the future - and collapsed.
Today, our world is one of automation, artificial intelligence, ecological destruction, and precarity. With each CGI remake, each new species extinction, it becomes increasingly difficult to see beyond the acceleration or decimation of our present moment. Yet if we lay no claim to our own futures, we are condemned to live in someone else's.
Our sixth issue aims to envision a different kind of tomorrow. We're proud to present explorations of forward-looking pop culture today to explore this. Look out for reviews of TV series like Chernobyl and Black Mirror, as well as poetry, fiction - and even a poetic essay critiquing our obsession with future annihilation. On top of this, our new issue attempts to provide a platform for artwork by visionary artists from marginalised backgrounds - and in the case of the Justice Arts Coalition, from people who spend more time than most dreaming of a different future.
In this issue, we have work which delves in to the imagination, piercing the detail of our culture and its dreams for the future. But though we hope you enjoy what you find, our website wishes first and foremost to empower you to act. If we don't, then tomorrow will repeat all the horrors of our past As Frances Reece, in her review of Bohemian Rhapsody and queer culture, writes:
It's looking good now
But how long will it take
To be stuffed under a mattress
Or burned at the stake?
Issue #6 - TOMORROW is proudly brought to you by...
Georgina Allan - Film Editor
Harry Smithson - Lit & Fiction Editor
Megan Daly - Visual Director
Niall Walker and Ciaran Daly - Co-Editors