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Thursday, October 1, 1998

Jacque Fresco's God complex






Welcome to the Future


By R. Pitman
(1998) 3 videocassettes, 16 min. each. $150 each (series price: $400). Study guide included. Global Cyber-Visions (dist. by Film Ideas). PPR. Color cover.
Futurist Jacque Fresco’s vision of the society, sketchily outlined here, has more than a faint Marxist-utopian ring to it, except that in Fresco’s world — a kind of Bucky Fuller landscape on steroids — cybernated systems (artificial intelligence networks even more advanced that those which operate Bill Gates’s house) will replaced most physical labor. Here, Fresco shows viewers glimpses (or — more often — drawings and computer animated clips) I’ll his 25 Acre 2nd Garden of Eden, code-named The Venus Project. Roughly circular in shape, the prototype community mixes elements of the urban, suburban and country living together with a community access center where the new cybercitizens can select needed items for daily living (resource-based economies Will replace monitor he based economies [goodbye Alan Greenspan!]). Certainly not the first, And undoubtedly not the last to confuse form with function, Fresco sees in his social overhaul, which is largely based on architectural design, the solution to — among other societal ills — hunger, war, and crying. In fact, the more I listen to Fresco’s specifics (computer chair in underwater structure for communicating with dolphins) and fuzzy non-specifics (education will become more “hands-on,” meaning…what, exactly?), it seemed to me I was encountering a God-like hubris coupled with the standard sci-fi dreamer’s naivete vis à vis human nature. But just as I was jolting this last down in my notes, Fresco cautioned viewers — and it gave me the shivers, since he seemed to be responding directly to my written reservations — to remember that human nature is not synonymous with human behavior; the latter can be changed. Although Fresco’s futurist scenario is — in my humble opinion — rife with problems, it’s not every day that somebody comes along ambitious enough to offer a blueprint for redesigning the world. Sure to spark animated debate, this is a strong optional purchase for larger collections. [Note: Global Cyber-Visions was originally selling this as a single video for $19.95 on their website.] Aud: H, C. P. (R. Pitman)