Continuing the thread of life on a space ship, my experience with sci-fi movies is that the drama often ignores the everyday life. People eat and drink one or two times to establish that everyday life is different in the future and then they get on with the main action / drama.
For me the banal is often the most interesting. The South Brooklyn flat inhabited by Korben Dallas (Bruce Willis) in the 1997 film, The Fifth Element, with it's self making bed that retracts into the wall, the cigarette dispensing machine, and the fridge the sinks into the ground to reveal a shower cubicle all point to how our everyday human needs remain. Hand in hand with our human needs are our human rutuals. The daily cigarette is losing traction in real life, but other daily (or annual) rituals remain a part of our cultural makeup.
Seldom does the protagonist stop to use a toilet, but on a recent visit to the Bangkok Science Museum, the replica of the toilet onboard the International Space Station was one of my son's most memorable exhibits.
To this end I thought of focusing on a very important human ritual, particularly one that is usually not featured in the everyday life onboard our space bound homes of the future, but one that is tied up in many human cultures, the birthday. In particular the ritual of blowing out candles on a cake.
Given that open flames on a spaceship is probably not the best of ideas I considered recreating a birthday candle electronically. It will only come on when standing vertical, it will flicker like a real candle, it will turn off when blown, but also it will should have a few surprises.
There are already plenty of electric candles out there in the world. It shouldn't be too hard to base some new code on what already exists.
BUT... I haven't seen an automatically retracting bed before. So in keeping true to my own rituals, I will avoid the low hanging fruit and forget my first thoughts. I'll be choosing the project that will make me think more (and hopefully learn something new in the process).
Self retracting beds, here we come.
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| IMAGE: Luke Williams, retrieved https://www.artstation.com/artwork/rRDRPm |
For me the banal is often the most interesting. The South Brooklyn flat inhabited by Korben Dallas (Bruce Willis) in the 1997 film, The Fifth Element, with it's self making bed that retracts into the wall, the cigarette dispensing machine, and the fridge the sinks into the ground to reveal a shower cubicle all point to how our everyday human needs remain. Hand in hand with our human needs are our human rutuals. The daily cigarette is losing traction in real life, but other daily (or annual) rituals remain a part of our cultural makeup.
Seldom does the protagonist stop to use a toilet, but on a recent visit to the Bangkok Science Museum, the replica of the toilet onboard the International Space Station was one of my son's most memorable exhibits.
To this end I thought of focusing on a very important human ritual, particularly one that is usually not featured in the everyday life onboard our space bound homes of the future, but one that is tied up in many human cultures, the birthday. In particular the ritual of blowing out candles on a cake.
Given that open flames on a spaceship is probably not the best of ideas I considered recreating a birthday candle electronically. It will only come on when standing vertical, it will flicker like a real candle, it will turn off when blown, but also it will should have a few surprises.
There are already plenty of electric candles out there in the world. It shouldn't be too hard to base some new code on what already exists.
BUT... I haven't seen an automatically retracting bed before. So in keeping true to my own rituals, I will avoid the low hanging fruit and forget my first thoughts. I'll be choosing the project that will make me think more (and hopefully learn something new in the process).
Self retracting beds, here we come.
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