Why does no-one imagine the future anymore?

We have started to look at what Love City might be like to people playing. We started to think about what connotations the words Love City might have.

The first thing that came to our minds was a perfect place, a sort of quasi hippy commune a place where every one is cared for where happy people in kaftans, banging tambourines dance around in a state of constant bliss. A place like the film "Logans Run" where everyone is young and carefree with endless free time. Everyone is high on future drugs which come in the form of silver spheres that you rub in orgasmic group frenzies.

The 60's and 70's seemed full of these imagined futures where pleasure and sexual freedom were central to the vision. Other films like "Westworld" and more comically Woody Allen's "The Sleeper" explored similar themes.
The darkside of these Flower Power Love Cities is that all these decadent shenanigans come at a cost - knowledge. The idea being that you can have as much fun as you like as long as you don't ask any questions and accept that the agents of the system are watching your every move.

The second thought that came to our minds was more seedy. Love City also sounds like a modern red light district, like a world of neon light, strip joints and sex shops.
This seems in part to be informed by the Japanese optimistically naming their knocking shops - Love Hotels.


We could also describe Love City in this light, as a decadent dystopia. A sort of last days of Rome environment, a place where morality is elastic and everything is poised on the brink of imminent implosion.

A part of making Love City was to explore why nobody seems to imagine the future any more. We seem to no longer be interested in building grand visions and futures filled with perfect people and terrifying all powerful machines.
We all seem to live in an all consuming eternal present where thinking of next months hot gadget replaces imagining possible futures. So maybe we can use gadgets to re-awaken a love of building tomorrow.

So we will create a parallel utopia superimposed over 3 midlands cities and allow the citizens to imagine their own future through a game on mobile phones.