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| 1935-2023 |
It would be a mistake to call illustrator Bruce McCall, who died this past Friday, a Luddite simply because he spent so much of his time and his talent poking fun at science and technology and what the future holds for both. For one thing, the science and technology he usually made light of wasn't the Apple/Google/Microsoft digitalized artificial intelligence variety that naysayers warn will very soon suck all of humanity into some sort of "singularity". In fact, McCall seemed less interested in the future we're told to expect and more interested in the future we were told to expect, but expect no more, taking as his satirical inspiration everything from the 1939 New York's World Fair to 1950s sci-fi drive-in movies to the gloriously illustrated automobile advertising that dominated glossy magazines in the middle decades of the 20th century until some Madison Avenue genius figured out it was just as easy, maybe even easier, to photograph a car as to draw one. But why make fun of a past vision of the future that never panned out? Perhaps it was McCall's way of reminding us that out present vision of the future, for better or worse, may be as equally pan-resistance. For now, just sit back and enjoy this collection of art, mostly from The New Yorker, but with a few examples from the National Lampoon as well, and observe how deftly McCall brings past, present, and future together, only to pull them all apart again. No singularity has ever been more pluralistic:
Ah, but a man's reach should exceed his grasp, or what's a heaven for?
--Robert Browning
