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Electricity and new technologies revolutionised domestic life, empowering women by freeing them from time-consuming household tasks. This exhibition examines how these innovations sparked women's independence, transforming homes and redefining traditional gender roles.

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LIVE PROJECT EXHIBITION: Just what was it that made yesterday's homes so different, so appealing?

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LIVE PROJECT EXHIBITION: Just what was it that made yesterday's homes so different, so appealing?

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To All Integrated Foundation Art & Design Students:

You are invited to participate in a collaborative exhibition exploring the transformative impact of electricity, technology, and their role in reshaping homes, gender roles and relationships across time.

Inspired by The All Electric House (Bristol, 1935), this exhibition forms part of the 2024 Electric Dreams project, celebrating the centenary of the pioneering Electrical Association for Women (EAW).

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The All Electric House was a modernist domestic house, commissioned by the Bristol Branch of the Electrical Association for Women (EAW) and built in 1935. It was an ambitious project designed by the architect, Adrian Powell.

The house reflected the aims of the EAW which was to encourage modern women to use electricity and electrical appliances in the home, in order to ‘escape the drudgery of everyday tasks’, thus freeing up their time for more independence, and the ability to enter the workforce

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Description and resources for the All Electric House in Bristol

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The Electrical Association For Women (EAW)

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The Electrical Association For Women (EAW)

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The EAW was an international organisation which had formed in 1924 as a sister organisation to the Women’s Engineering Society (WES), and its mission, the ‘emancipation from drudgery’ to transform women’s role of domesticity through modern technology.

The EAW acted as a vehicle for the education of lay women about electricity and as an advisory body to the industry on matters of policy, asserting the need for safe and practical appliances in the home to reduce the burden of women's domestic work.

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Download this brochure here. ​ Purchase EAW teatowels here. In the early 1920s, electricity was just beginning to be introduced to the homes of the UK, and in 1924 Mrs Mabel Matthews – a…

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The Eames House of Cards Construction Game, 1952

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You will produce creative responses on pre-cut interlocking panels that playfully explore the concept of chain reactions.

The panels are more than just a surface for your ideas - they represent connectivity - the literal and symbolic power of electricity to transform, link and empower —people, ideas, systems—and your artwork should reflect that energy.

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Technology has reshaped domestic life for everyone, not just women. Electrical innovations reshaped the home facilitating shared responsibility, convenience, and balance beyond traditional gender roles.

How has it evolved with new technologies?

What does the concept of home mean to different people in a modern, technology-filled world?

How has technology made home life more efficient and equal for all?

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To commemorate the centenary of the formation of the Electrical Association for Women (EAW) in 2024, the Stradling Collection in Bristol is hosting an Exhibition to showcase Bristol’s All Electric House, a modernist domestic house built in 1935 which still stands today in Stoke Bishop.

The Stradling Collection showcases an impressive range of 20th and 21st-century design and applied arts, featuring nearly 2,000 pieces of ceramics, glass, furniture, and decorative objects. Originating from the Bristol Guild’s retail design shop, the collection was transformed by Ken Stradling MBE into an educational trust, designed to inspire future generations.

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Electric Charm Music Video, Cary Illonois, Illustrations and Animation by Yukai Du

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Can electricity represent more than just power in the home—perhaps as a force for connection, change, empowerment, or disruption?

How does it shape our lives beyond the home? What does it symbolise for society, for communication, for personal freedom?

How has electricity transformed society, work, and human relationships?

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Your work will reimagine domestic spaces, objects and appliances, telling stories of how technology connects, empowers, and transforms. Using pre-cut, slot together panels, you’ll create outcomes that can shift, evolve, and playfully recombine, just like the ever-changing influence of electricity in our lives.

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What is a home (in the age of technology)?

How have new technologies sparked change in our domestic lives? Reflect on gender roles, domesticity and empowerment.

What does electricity symbolise (beyond circuit boards and wires)—connection, power, or disruption?

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Remember Kallewupp., Construction Game, 2014

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The interlocking system will allow your artwork to evolve, merging with others and forming a larger, collaborative piece that changes over time.

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You will be working collaboratively, creating and constructing at the same time. You may choose to work in pairs or groups.

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Stradling Collection and All Electric House Pinterest Board

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Stradling Collection and All Electric House Pinterest Board

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0 Stradling Collection & All Electric House ideas in 2024 | vintage stoves, vintage appliances, cardboard sculpture

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Sep 17, 2024 - Explore Sum-Sum Tse-Cappi’s board “Stradling Collection & All Electric House” on Pinterest. See more ideas about vintage stoves, vintage appliances, cardboard sculpture.

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The interlocking panels represent connection—between people, places, and ideas. Use this as a platform to think about how energy flows between us, how technology links us together, and how one idea can spark another.

How does technology create networks between people and ideas?

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Incredible Illustrations From ‘Elektroschutz in 132 Bildern’ (1936) - Flashbak

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Austrian physician Stefan Jellinek (May 29, 1871 – September 2, 1968) founded The Electro-Pathological Museum in 1936. He provided the content seen in the book Elektroschutz in 132 Bildern (Electrical Protection in 132 Pictures). Death and electricity went hand-in-hand. But with this book, you would be forewarned. If you can identify all the contraptions, let us … Continue reading “Incredible Illustrations From ‘Elektroschutz in 132 Bildern’ (1936)”

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john hersey

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While this project celebrates women’s emancipation, technology also shifted gender roles across the board. Non-female participants might explore how electrical technology redefined domestic responsibilities for men and non-binary individuals. How did electricity change expectations for all genders?

How have electrical innovations changed daily routines and social roles for all genders?

What opportunities has technology created for independence and personal freedom?

How have gender roles evolved in the home with the rise of new technology?

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5. Personal Experience and Imaginative Rooms

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5. Personal Experience and Imaginative Rooms

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Everyone’s home life is shaped by technology.

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Outer Space of Only Mine by Alice Yin Shen Sha 

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5. Personal Experience and Imaginative Rooms

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5. Personal Experience and Imaginative Rooms

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https://www.behance.net/gallery/64201767/Outer-Space-Of-Only-Mine-

Your outcome could imagine a room that reflects how tech has reshaped your personal space—whether that’s a literal room in your home, or a more abstract idea about how technology has shifted your world.

Maybe it’s an exploded kitchen, or a living room where electrical appliances come alive?

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The story of the All Electric House is one of empowerment—especially for women. But how has technology empowered all of us? Explore how electricity, appliances, and modern innovations have opened doors to education, creativity, and opportunity for everyone.

How does technology empower you?

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How has technology reshaped family dynamics, culture, or generational roles? Look at the big picture. Consider how it’s changed the way we live together, communicate, and evolve as communities.

How has technology reshaped the modern family and community life?

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Write down 10+ electrical and technological objects and appliances that you use everyday.

(In teams of 6)

In 2 minute rounds, describe as many of your objects and appliances to your neighbour without saying the word. The other has to guess the objects. Take turns.

Consider: What does it look like?

What does it feel like?

What does it sound like?

Does it smell?

What does it do?

How do you use it?

When or how often do you use it?

Why can’t you live without it?

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Your work will be displayed as part of a collaborative exhibition where the interlocking panels can be combined and reconfigured, creating a playful, evolving space that reflects the ever-changing role of technology in the home.

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Time Magazine Cover Sept 19, 1960, No.12

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Time Magazine Cover Sept 19, 1960, No.12

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Ochiai Shohei Talks About His Inspirations, Life Journey, Aspirations & More – OVERSTANDARD – Culture & Creativity

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Sewing - Sarah Beetson

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To find out more about the weird and wonderful retrofuturism movement, Bored Panda reached out to Lisa Yaszek, a Regents Professor of Science Fiction Studies at the Georgia Institute of Technology.

Lisa explained that when we talk about retrofuturist objects and images, we usually refer to images of the past from the late 1800s through the space race, like many of the images collected here. "And when we look at these images, it becomes clear that people from the past actually had expectations of the future that were often quite like our own!"

According to Lisa, "they seem to have been particularly good at extrapolating from all the exciting new communications technologies of the time-telephones, radios, film, and TV-to imagine a range of new communications technologies much like we have now that allow us to talk to anyone from anywhere (#1 and 11), navigate our cars with ease (#2), get breaking news on our screens (#5), and even shop from home (#18 is shockingly on the mark)."

Moreover, "People of the past were also quite good at anticipating how our clothing and personal presentation might change! Image #1 presents us with the kind of brightly colored, streamlined, unisex uniform first imagined by avant-garde artists and then made popular by science fiction filmmakers in the opening decades of the twentieth century and that are still very much with us today."

As for image #16, Lisa sees it as an exciting representation of future fashion. "The two models here appear to be wearing then-contemporary undergarments, but other aspects of their styles are very modern! The artist certainly guessed correctly that in the future, we would wear less clothing in public, indulge in more body ornamentation (the man's tattoos look a lot like the tribal body art that became popular with the Modern Primitive movement in the 1990s), and that gender roles might be less clearly defined."

Having said that, the people of the past were not always very accurate with their predictions about the use of big science and big engineering, said Lisa. "Images #15, 19, 20, 21, 22, 25, and 30 are particularly good examples of the utopian dream that someone-possibly the state, possibly a benevolent corporation-will engage in big, public engineering projects that will allow us to live well in the potentially hostile environments we might encounter in the future."

According to the professor, people also had surprisingly different ideas about transportation than we do now. "I get the sense that the women in image #1 have flown their personal airplanes to the restaurant for a quick drink, and I love the idea that we might create maglevs for mass transit and then use balloons and mechanized glass domes for personal travel (#4, 7). People were right to guess that we'd have automated cars (#6, 17), but they clearly didn't anticipate that such cars would be used mostly for corporate purposes."

"Finally, as a university professor, I am desperately sad that we have not developed robots to rap students on the head when they are misbehaving as in image #10. Someone needs to start working on that immediately," the professor commented.

The professor of science fiction studies also noted that it's important to remember that these futures were not retro to the people who imagined them. "They were modern imaginings of the future, inspired by the cutting-edge sciences and avant-garde arts of the time."

From the retrofuturist images that were generated between the 1880s and 1960s, "we get a great sense of the sciences and technologies that were most important to people of the past, including new modes of mass and personal transportation, new communication technologies, and new habitats for new forms of living (garden mega-cities and artificial ringworlds)," Lisa explained.

Lisa added that "people were inspired by the rise of modern cities and modern factories to imagine that we would enjoy many large, state- or corporate-sponsored public works projects-and that those projects would combine the best of the natural and technological worlds," and added: "They are wholeheartedly utopian!"

Meanwhile, Lina Survila, a global tech PR and chief editor at Abstract Stylist, also told Bored Panda that "artists had the perfect vision, and it seems they were very close to the ideas we see today."

Moreover, "Retro futurist aesthetics have touched every possible art form there is. Fashion is no exception. When we think of futurism in fashion and a bright vision of what the future might be, we think of Paco Rabanne. The Spanish fashion designer was active in the '60s and totally disrupted the fashion scene with retrofuturistic designs and his ideas of how people would dress in the future (most likely, that future is now)."

Retro ideas of how the future would look inspired many creators, artists, and thinkers, "from architect and designer Matti Suuronen (Futuro house created in the 1970s) to writer Isaac Asimov's book The Naked Sun." Lina added that The Jetsons with their retrofuturistic flying cars also deserve a big shout-out in popularizing the movement's aesthetics in popular culture.

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30 Predictions From "Retro Future" That Were Either A Hit Or A Miss

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The technology, and the world we live in, escalates so quickly that it surpasses our best forecasts for what the future holds.

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What did people in the 50s & 60s predict about the modern world?

If you've been to Disney's Tomorrowland, you probably already have a good idea of how our mid-century forbears thought our present (or, rather, near past) played out. And that over-the-top sci-fi fantasy was a mere snapshot of their big dreams!

Looking back, however, it turns out there was a lot they got right. Sure, they were overly optimistic in some regards - sadly, no Jetsons-style flying cars for us yet - but we didn't let them completely down on this end of the line. (Also noteworthy... they had one major blind spot.)

What they got right

On the one hand, futurism correctly predicted the widespread use of technology and automation in daily life.

Indeed, computers and automation are a huge part of our lives today, and it's hard to imagine life without them. And the experts were nearly spot on about US population growth and shifting family dynamics, our geopolitical positioning, satellite technology, and increasing human life spans.

And while they didn't quite conceive of the internet and social media as it exists today - not to mention the Patriot Act and all of its ramifications - they had a pretty good handle on the conflicts that exist at the intersections of ever-advancing technology, government power, celebrity culture, surveillance, and personal privacy.

As one prescient futurist put it: "...society will have lost its benign capacity to forget." How uncomfortably correct.

What they got wrong

There were also predictions that didn't pan out. For example, some futurists thought that by the year 2000, people would be living in underwater cities and traveling to other planets as a routine part of life - among other zany predictions one might expect from denizens of the Space Age.

While these predictions might have seemed exciting and futuristic at the time, they certainly haven't come to pass yet.

Even more modest predictions, like wireless electricity (!) and the cure for the common cold, have yet to transpire. As for rocket-propelled or flying cars? Sigh. Those aren't even on the radar yet (so to speak).

What they didn't even think of...

The Y2K bug, for one thing! And another particularly glaring omission: Mid-century futurism didn't consider the impact of climate change and its cataclysmic potential.

To be fair, the issue of climate change was not well understood nor widely recognized at the time. (It wasn't until the 1970s that scientists really started to grasp the role that human activity plays in global warming.)

Without question, by the 1950s and 60s, humanity had seen an incredible amount of technological advancement and societal change over the first half of the century. It's no wonder that they expected some truly amazing things would happen in the second half (and they did, just... differently).

Read on to journey back and explore even more predictions of the future (that's actually now past) by those from the further-back past! - BB

How experts in 1951 thought we'd live in the year 2000

The year 2000 looms nearer in the accelerating pace of modern life than 1950 ever could have seemed at the beginning of this century.

If the past foretells the future, and present trends point the way, many millions of persons alive today will live to see peace, prosperity, health, longer life, more leisure and greater luxuries than ever were known. A woman may be President!
Syndicated article from the Racine Journal Times (Wisconsin) October 21, 1951
These are some of the rewards envisaged for the year 2000 by the Associated Press experts looking ahead.
Amid war and rumors of war, new terrors grip the world, but hopes and dreams of the future prevail.
Aviation: Foolproof flying
Here is how they size up prospects.
Civil aviation in AD 2000 will be accepted by the public as readily as mid-century's automobile and train.

Flight will have the precision of control found in ground vehicles and should be more independent of surface weather conditions. Piloting will be as simple as driving a shiftless car and ringed with safeguards to reduce human error. Safety will be greater in commercial air transportation than in any of today's travel methods.

Atomic engines for large civil aircraft will do away with the problem of range and speed. Electronic airways and landing systems, combined with electronic eyes in the planes, superior cabin pressurization, new structural designs and materials and complete aircraft anti-icing will eliminate weather factors in schedules.

Cruising speeds of 1000 miles an hour or higher are probable for deluxe travel. Air mail and high priority cargo are likely to move much faster, traveling in pilotless missiles controlled from ground stations.

New principles of lift and development of designs already begun will end mid-century's struggle with giant airports. Combinations of rotating and fixed wings and conventional aircraft with high lift helicopters can eliminate long runways.

Detachable fuselages, interchangeable between types of aircraft, will provide door-to-door air freight service.

Combination automobile-planes will have been perfected.

Civilian scientists will have begun their study of the outer space and will be preparing for interplanetary explorations, using methods already understood in mid-century.

Television predictions: Walkie-talkie-seeing

Third-dimensional color television will be so commonplace and so simplified at the dawn of the 21st century that a small device will project pictures on the living room wall so realistic they will seem to be alive. The room will automatically be filled with the aroma of the flower garden being shown on the screen.

Radio broadcasting will have disappeared, for no one will tune in a program that cannot be seen. Radio will long since have reverted to a strictly communications medium, using devices now unheard of and unthought of.

Wireless transmission of electric power, long a dream of the engineer, will have come into being. There will be no more power lines to break in storms. A simple small antenna on the roof will pick up the current for lighting a house.

The telephone will be transformed from wire to radio and will be equipped with the visuality of television. Who's on the other end of the line will seldom be a mystery. Every pedestrian will have his own walking telephone - an apparatus housed in a wallet-sized kit.

Film predictions: Fourth-dimension views
ALSO SEE: Computers in the 1960s: What they looked like & how they were used
Some movie theaters of AD 2000 may be dome-shaped, with ceiling and walls arching together like the sky. These surfaces would be the "screen." Most action would still be in front of you, as now.

But some could be overhead, some at the sides, and some even on the wall behind. A little girls steps into a street in the action before you - and you turn around and look behind you to see if an auto is coming.

Three-dimensional photography is likely - the kind of pictures with depth that parlor stereoscopes used to offer.

Almost all movies will be in color. People will still laugh and cry at the same things. Sex and Westerns will still be with us.

Population predictions: Growth will slow

The population of the United States, which rose from 76,000,000 in 1900 to 150,000,000 in 1950, may not double again in the next half century. US Census Bureau experts doubt that it will reach 300,000,000 by the year 2000, but they are not hazarding predictions that far ahead.

Population may reach 200,000,000 before the end of the century and will keep on increasing well into the 21st century. While population doubled in the last half century, it more than tripled in the previous 50 years between 1850 and 1900. Between 1800 and 1850, it had more than quadrupled.

Three shifts in US population that have been tremendous in the past 10 years are expected to keep going strong. These are: Movement of people from farms to town, migration from the center of the country to border states, particularly the Pacific coast and the South, and the movement of city dwellers to the suburbs.

These trends will be further stimulated by industrial production needed for the new, long-range defense program and by farm mechanization.

Science predictions: A man-made planet

The first man-made star will be circling around the earth by the year 2000.

This star's light will be like that of the moon, reflected sunshine. It will be visible before sunrise and after sunset. It will circle 400 to 500 miles away from earth, or possibly farther.

This little planet is likely to be the first of the space ships, because there are a lot of practical reasons for building it, regardless of the future of interplanetary travel.

It will be the nose of step-rocket, one which fires in sections, each part dropping off to fall back to earth, until the final piece attains the speed of seven miles a second. At that velocity, the end piece will not fall back, but will become a satellite of earth.

Practical uses are numerous. One is a radar beacon. Another to reflect radio signals, for scientific study. Three of these small ships, high enough and evenly spaced around the earth might become relays to serve the entire world with television. The first ship is unlikely to be manned. But it may get power enough from the sun's heat to drive electronic equipment indefinitely.

In 2000, we shall be able to fly around the world in a day. We shall be neighbors of everyone else on earth, to whom we wish to be neighborly.

The atomic age should be getting underway. Atomic power will become useful in those areas where coal and oil are expensive and where water power is not available.

Medicine predictions: A longer lifespan

Medicine by the year 2000 will have advanced the length of life of women to an expectation of nearly 80 and of men to over 75.

The record will be better if the cause and cure of cancer is discovered. Cancer is a form of growth. It is part of metabolism. Concerning growth, nothing is now known. Metabolism is not such a complete mystery, but is complex.

Most of the chronic diseases, except infections caused by germs and viruses, are based on metabolism gone wrong.

Growth, metabolism and cancer studies will make the first break into clearing another mystery, the causes of aging. After that is known it will be possible to control aging so that elderly persons will be healthy to nearly the end of their lives.

Hope is very good for restricting cancer's attack before 50 more years, but not for eradicating it. For it now appears that cancer is not a single disease, but takes many forms.

The prevention of baldness depends on studies of growth, aging and death more than on any other know factor.

Public health will improve, especially the knowledge of how air carries infections, like the common cold, from person to person. Before 2000, the air probably will be made as safe from disease-spreading as water and food were during the first half of this century.

Surgery, which has been the fastest-moving side of medical science, will by 2000, be able to repair bodies damaged by disease, by accidents or by heredity so that the "lame and the halt" will nearly disappear.

Polio probably will be stopped well before 2000.

Agriculture predictions: A golden age

A golden age of agriculture - providing greater economic security for farmers and better eating for consumers - may become a major accomplishment of the last half of the 20th century.

Giving support to the possibility of attaining this goal is the remarkable progress made in agriculture during the first half of the century. At the start of the century, it required the efforts of two-fifths of the nation's population to supply the demand for farm products.

Today - at the century's halfway mark - it takes only one-fifth of the population. What has made it possible has been largely the work of science new and better farm machinery and biology.
ALSO SEE: The Home of the Future at Disneyland showed how the 50s imagined the 80s
Foreseeing a national population of 200,000,000 by the end of the century, these leaders predict less than one-tenth of the people will be needed to supply markets for farm products.

Through the extended use of better plants and animals, improved fertilizers, new growth regulators and more efficient machinery, it should be possible, leaders say, for farmers to produce future crop needs on much less land than today.

A major byproduct of the expected need for fewer farmers and for possible new scientific developments, leaders say, should be greater ability to stabilize agricultural production and supplies at levels which would provide and maintain greater security for those on the land.

[Ed note: It took until 2022, but autonomous tractors (controlled via smart phone apps) are finally becoming reality!]

World affairs prediction: Price of peace

Students of history in the year 2000 will probably look back on the 20th Century as the era of blood and money. Blood because the earth will still be reeking from the third world war. Money, representing the material resources of the western world, because it will have outweighed the unfulfilled promises of Russian imperialistic Communism in unifying the world, or at least will be on the way to that end.

More importantly, but bearing on both, will be the recognition that a new world unifying power - the United States - will have taken its place in the center of international affairs; forging a new "empire," different from Britain's, different from Rome's, indeed not an empire at all in the old sense, but nevertheless a new core, a new catalytic force.

This central position of the United States will grow out of its already-demonstrated willingness to base its relations with other nations on a community of interest; out of its capabilities for lending aid to the underdeveloped out of its refusal to divide the world after World War II, into spheres of influence the great powers.

The Third World War - barring such a miracle that as has never yet happened in relations between countries so greatly at odds - will grow out of Russia's exactly opposite attempts to unify the world by force.

By the year 2000, some sort of world federation should have taken real form, with the United States, because of its commercial interest in the development of other lands, because of the blood it will have shed in their behalf, holding a lot of votes.

Government prediction: Freedom will survive

How will this land of ours be governed in 50 years?

Much as today, perhaps - with two parties contending against each other and within themselves, with the people free to choose between them, with the winner pressured from all sides, yet curbed and guided by a constitution little changed since George Washington's day.

And yet it is easy to scare ourselves with other possibilities.

Some see us drifting toward the all-powerful state, lulled by the sweet sound of "security." Some see a need to curb our freedom lest it be used to shield those who plot against us. And some fear our freedom will be hard to save if a general war should come. What then?

A military dictatorship to restore the nation's body, if not its soul, from the ravages of atomic attack? Some sort of Fascism? Or, in the name of Socialism, some mild or strong control of what we do; directives here, big red "Thou- Shall Not's" there?

Some fear the worst, And yet: We've feared the worst, while hoping for the best, ever since we have been a nation. We've come through war and depressions. And we've come through - free.

Today, almost alone among men, we have the strength - as we may need to prove - to hold the course we choose.

Retrofuturism predictions - Push button education (1958)

Tomorrow's schools will be more crowded; teachers will be correspondingly fewer. Plans for a push-button school have already been proposed by Dr. Simon Ramo, science faculty member at the California Institute of Technology.

Teaching would be by means of sound movies and mechanical tabulating machines. Pupils would record attendance and answer questions by pushing buttons. Special machines would be "geared" for each individual student so he could advance as rapidly as his abilities warranted.

Progress records, also kept by machine, would be periodically reviewed by skilled teachers, and personal help would be available when necessary.

Amazing marvels of tomorrow: Flying saucers for everybody! (1956)

IT IS a bright morning in 1965. At precisely eight am, Joe Lees emerges from the back door of his lakeside cottage, only 75 miles from his job in the city.

In the graveled center of his backyard, his jaunty new plastic saucer rests lightly on three tiny balloon tires.

Greeting his neighbor who rides with him, Joe lifts a flush flap in the saucer's rounded nose. He turns a recessed locking handle and throws back the bubble-like windshield. Spring-loaded, like the hoods of today's cars, the enclosure lifts easily. As it does, the interlinked nose cone swings down to form a handy step.

Joe's neighbor steps up over the low instrument pedestal, and then across the folded pilot's seat to his perch in the rear. Joe follows, slams the windshield shut, and turns the starter key. The two men fasten their safety belts as the engine comes to life.

As the fan-like inductor begins whirling with a high-pitched whine, the automatic servo-flaps pop open and a torrent of air is drawn inward over the circular wings. Faster and faster it flows, building up the lift pattern of a racing, fixed-wing take-off. For a moment, the trembling saucer remains stationary. Then, slowly and smoothly, it rises vertically into the air like an elevator ascending an unseen shaft.

At 450 feet per minute, the saucer climbs to the southbound traffic lane and the engine's pulsing torque is shifted to the pusher propeller at the machine's tail. As the prop takes hold, the inductor fan gradually slows to a halt and the servo-flaps clamp shut. Functioning now as a fixed-wing airplane, our saucer banks around and heads south at a comfortable 165 mph cruising speed.

As it tools toward the city, other saucers join the parade and there is a thick stream of aerial traffic. Soon, the downtown towers of the metropolis loom on the horizon and a whole complex of distant traffic lanes converge from the four corners of suburbia.

MORE: See how people 100 years ago imagined cars would look in the future (and how wrong they were)
SEE MORE LIKE THIS! 30 retro-futuristic space-age inventions, including several we're still waiting for
Over the business district, Joe turns out of the main stream and heads for the company's building. He throttles back his prop, shifts to the air inductor again, and slowly descends to the landing pad. It is now 8:30 a.m. The 75-mile flight took only 30 minutes.

Mi's saucer was conceived by Peter Nofi, an officer in the Merchant Marine. Nofi, a dedicated student of aerodynamics, has combined the downward jet thrust of the ducted fan with the proven principle of the high-lift airfoil. We know that the fan will work because using it, men and machines have been lifted bodily into the air by the modest power of outboard engines.

Nofi's arrangement is inherently simple. He has merely taken the straight airplane wing and pulled the ends around to form a circle with the leading edge facing out. In the center hole of this doughnut-shaped airfoil, he has mounted a ducted fan which sucks a high-speed airflow in over the wing and, in the form of a compressed air jet, blows it out through the bottom of the hole.
By Frank Tinsley - Mechanix Illustrated (1957)
According to Nofi, the negative (upward) pressure created by the passage of air over the top of the wing, plus the reaction (upward) pressure of the air jet, add up to a total lift ample for vertical flight.

The other unique feature of Nofi's saucer is the pair of semicircular servo-flaps hinged to the top of the wing root on either side of the fuselage. These open automatically to permit inward airflow when the ducted fan is operating, then close to form the top curve' of a large fore-and-aft airfoil when the machine is in forward flight as a fixed-wing airplane.

A twin control system is employed to provide for the differing conditions of vertical and forward flight. For vertical take-off and landing, compressed air from the inductor is piped to the aileron and flipper areas and expelled through differentially operated jet nozzles. These are built into the conventional control surfaces used in forward flight and are operated by the same wheel column.

In line with his low cost philosophy, Nofi plans to have the top and bottom surfaces of his saucer stamped out on a press, using a plastic material reinforced by glass "flock." This technique, now successfully employed by small boat builders, will also be used on the servo-flaps, fuselage and other components.

Cemented together with the internal gas tank spar, plumbing, etc., in place, the hollow wing will then be filled with a foamed plastic compound which cures into a rigid, air-filled sponge. This replaces expensive interior structure and converts the wing into an unsinkable life ring for emergency water landings.
DON'T MISS: The first family of the future: The Jetsons (1962)
Mass-produced, the plastic saucer should cost no more than today's medium-priced cars. Could be that by 1965 you'll have one flying out of your backyard, too!

The future: Your own personal flying cars, powered by electricity

More power to you: Your own flying cars (1959)

Tomorrow's higher standard of living will put electricity to work for you in ways still unheard of!

The time isn't too far off, the experts say, when you'll wash your dishes without soap or water - ultrasonic waves will do the job. Your beds will be made at the touch of a button. the kids' homework will be made interesting and even exciting when they are able to dial a library book, a lecture or a classroom demonstration right into your home - with sound. (Some of this is happening already.)

To enjoy all this, you'll want a lot more electric power, and the independent electric companies of America are already building new plants and facilities to provide it. Right now these companies are building at the rate of $5,000,000,000 a year, and planning to double the nation's supply of electricity in less than 10 years.

Wherever you look today, electric service makes good things possible. Imagine what it'll do for you tomorrow. (1965)

Flying mobile camper of the future may be electric powered-plugging into any electric outlet for recharging.

It's your desires and dreams that spur us on. That spirit has always been at the heart of our business. It's helped us keep the average unit price paid for electric service coming steadily down over the years. And with your continued help, we'll keep electric service one of the best household bargains you can get.

So go ahead and dream! You'll never outdream your possibilities, with more than 300 investor-owned power companies working for you across the land.

The future: Electric driverless cars? (1956)

Your air conditioner, television and other appliances are just the beginning of the new electric age.

Your food will cook in seconds instead of hours. Electricity will close your windows at the first drop of rain. Lamps will cut on and off automatically to fit the lighting needs in your rooms. Television "screens" will hang on the walls. An electric heat pump will use outside air to cool your house in summer, heat it in winter.
America's independent light and power companies build for your new electric living
You will need and have much more electricity than you have today. Right now, America's more than 400 independent electric light and power companies are planning and building to have twice as much electricity for you by 1965. These companies can have this power ready when you need it because they don't have to wait for an act of Congress - or a cent of tax money - to build the plants.
Your personal "flying carpet" - Step into it, press a button, and if you go off to market, to a friend's home, or to your job, take off or land anywhere - no parking problems. Plug into any electric outlet for recharging.
The experience, imagination and enterprise that electrified the nation in a single lifetime are at work shaping your electric future. That's why in the years to come, as in the past, you will benefit most when you are served by independent companies like the ones bringing you this message - America's Electric Light and Power Companies.
ALSO SEE: 20 stunning space-age retro futuristic home concepts from the '60s
How life might be for you in the year 2000 (1960)

Well, here's how your life may change in these few years before 2000, according to one researcher for the 1962 Seattle World's Fair. She is Jane Armstrong, a veteran science reporter, assigned by one of the fair's major planners, Donald Deskey Associates, to find out what Mr and Mrs Consumer are in for.
Today, abundant electric service brings modern conveniences to the campsite.
Your day in the year 2000

It's 3 pm - end of the work day. Irving Consumer of the Predictor Corp. closes his information retrieval unit.

Irving's job is finding out what's been done via electronic memory units about one or another problem so that his superiors can decide whether proposed inventions or discoveries can ever be invented or discovered.

At home, Gladys Consumer is getting ready for dinner. At her core units in the kitchen, she consults her home computer to find out how many calories, vitamins, etc. her family will need tonight and what kind of menu will supply it.

She is interrupted by the laundry man who has come to pick up the used paper sheets and clothing for re-pulping and remanufacturing.
One day your car may speed along an electric highway, its speed and steering automatically controlled by electronic devices embedded in the road. Travel will be more enjoyable. Highways will be made safe - by electricity! No traffic jams . . . no collisions . . . no driver fatigue.
At this moment, Irving arrives home in his inflatable airplane (it's almost ready for delivery now). Gladys takes the frozen dehydrated food out of the closet - not the refrigerator - and puts them into the solar oven. She checks one part of the core computer for proper cooking and another to find out where the children are.

Then she comes into the living room to relax with her husband. They've given up smoking and drinking, of course. Instead, they use an electrothermal high-frequency stimulator - the size of a pencil - to massage their skins.

Irving places a coded card into the news machine to find out what's been happening. And together they watch the sun set through the controlled weather. (There hasn't been an air accident for years.)

Plans for the futuristic evening

Tonight, there's a slight change in plans. The Consumers were going to visit Irving's parents, grandparents. But because of the Christmas-New Year holiday, the community university has had to give a few extra lectures for students working toward their PhDs. So, the older folks are at school.
ALSO SEE: Back to the Future I, II & III: About these classic time travel movies, plus see the original trailers
Irving decides that he'll stay home and listen to his hi-fi - a small machine that fits into his ear. Gladys welcomes the chance to continue with her astronomy lessons at the civic observatory.

Junior, who did his homework by pill (it simulates learning centers in the brain depending on the subject to be studied), takes his skis and goes down to the powdered plastic slope, checking with the core computer first so that his mother won't worry about him.
From the Lowell Sun (Lowell, Mass.) December 10, 1960 Brief reminder: As of New Years' eve, it's only 39 years to the 21st century. But in this immediate future, according to Ewen Dingwall, general manager of Seattle's Century 21 Exposition, there are so many big things that it's going to take 74 acres of exhibits just to hit the highlights.
About midnight, the whole family reassembles (they don't need nearly the amount of sleep 1961 man needs) and has a core computer-approved snack. Then it's off to bed.

Lying there in their humidified, purified, weather-perfect bedroom, Irving and Gladys discuss briefly their plan for throwing out the east wing of the house and replacing it with completely new architecture and decor. They'll do that on Saturday morning.

But meanwhile, tomorrow's another busy day...

"It doesn't frighten me at all," reports researcher Jane Armstrong of the 21st Century. "But now and then I do get a little uneasy."

Farms of the future: High-rise barns and plastic domed fields? (1967)
ALSO SEE: About Max Headroom, the '80s sci-fi TV show that starred a wisecracking digital talking head
A panel of university, industry and other agriculture experts has been assembled and their predictions are startling.

If the world survives population explosions, they say, the year 2000 will see tractors running without visible operators, carrot tops and pea pods will be turned into milk to supplement real milk supplies, and prize milk cows will produce as many as 1000 offspring.

Other predictions foresee plastic domes covering acres of cropland and corn plants that look like small pine trees with cobs of corn growing at the top of the stalks.

The projection of agriculture is part of a study conducted and led by the experts and sponsored by Ford Motor Company's US tractor and implement operations department. Portions of the study were released last Sunday.

"The efficient farmer of the year 2000 is a super breed of farmer, with super skills and super tools," says the report. "The heart of his operation will be a control center equipped with a wide array of electronic wizardry to help him produce crops two to five times as abundant as today."

The unmanned tractors would be controlled by computer tapes, buried wires or sensing devices. Their courses would be plotted on units similar to airplane radar sets and set up in the agricultural center's headquarters.

Crops and livestock predictions

The experts predicted that cows will quadruple their milk production by the year 2000.

Today's average cow becomes a mother only about 10 times during her lifetime. In the future, fertilized eggs will be transplanted from superior cows into common incubator cows, allowing the superior animal to mother as many as 1000 calves during her life.

Plant growth will be automatically recorded so that the farmer can provide proper light, water and nutrients, just by turning a dial. The dial will regulate influences on growth within a huge plastic or glass dome covering 10 acres or more.

The Ford report predicts that new machinery will include huge four or six-wheel drive tractors with cabs that have air conditioning, food warmers, coffee makers, refrigerators, television and sinks. It is assumed that at least some tractors will have to be steered by humans.

Other predictions by the panel call for "chain-reaction" machines which harvest one crop and plant another right behind, in one operation. A combination hovercraft-helicopter will be used for spraying.

The report also projects staggering crop yields: Three hundred bushels of wheat per acre, compared to today's 27; 175 bushels of soybeans, compared to today's 25; 30 tons of forage compared with three; 30000 pounds of milk per cow per year, compared with 8000, and beef cattle which grow to 1000 pounds at 10 months of age, compared with 750 today.

Current trends continuing

Based on the consensus of today's leading world farm experts, the report estimated that if present trends continue for the next 30 years, the world population will increase by as much as it has in the past million years to more than six billion.

John A Banning, general operations manager of Ford's tractor and implement division, said that the public presentation part of the report only partly covered all of the experts findings.

He explained that some of the items investigators covered, but not used in the public report, included such subjects as roles to be played by the government and land grant universities in developments of the agricultural future.

Among studies to be made are the possibility of using solar energy for power, the use of sewage for fertilizer, desalination of seawater, and new food processing methods.

Ford's study, headed by Prof Carl Hall, chairman of agricultural engineering at the University of Michigan, and Prof John Harris, an associate professor of economics at the same school, represents a trend being set by many big businesses and educational institutions in the United States. University of Wisconsin agricultural experts have made predictions similar to Ford's report.

Last year, a large electric equipment firm predicted that farms of the future could be housed in a skyscraper complex which would include dairy and beef cattle, vegetables, cattle food and processing divisions on separate floors. The electricity experts said that such a farm could be built amid the forest of tall buildings in American cities such as Manhattan.
ALSO SEE: See the revolutionary Picturephone - an early version of Zoom (yes, you could actually video chat in the 1960s!)
The Ford study concluded that, "All the evidence shows there is no need for hunger in the world tomorrow. But we must gear immediately for the gigantic job ahead. Zero hour is now!"

Predictions from 1968: What the future might be like in the year 2000 for families, business & beyond
The Capital Times (Madison, Wisconsin) October 19, 1967 Farmers of the not-too-distant future may have as much need for off-hour exercise as their city cousins. The farmer's job may be as sedentary as that of the urban white-collar worker, according to the latest projections on what farming will be like by the year 2000.
By the year 2000, Americans may travel by ballistic missile, swallow a pill for a meal, wear tights and helmets like people in science fiction comic strips. Or they may not. There's no way of telling, and perhaps it doesn't make much difference.

What matters is the quality of life: What will it be like to live in the year 2000? No one can draw the complete picture, but members of the Commission on the Year 2000 took glimpses from special points of view.

Will people be able to learn and remember what they need to know in the complex world of 2000? Not without help, predicted psychologist George A Miller of Harvard University.

How will new biological techniques affect relations between the sexes? Perhaps by eliminating marriage and the family, suggested anthropologist Margaret Mead of New York's Museum of Natural History.

What will earning a living be like for Americans? Easier, Herman Kahn and Anthony J Wiener of the Hudson Institute calculate. Maybe too easy.

Will there be any privacy left? Only if society takes steps to preserve it, warned law professor Harry Kalven, Jr of the University of Chicago.
ALSO SEE: Travel by conveyor belt? See futuristic ideas from the 1900s for moving sidewalk-style city transportation
So much to learn

George Miller has specialized in human memory and the way the mind processes information. There is an upper limit, he says, to the number of things a person can pay attention to at any one time. There is probably also a limit to the capacity of a person's memory.

In the Year 2000, society will be more complex, as well as more crowded. Every individual will know more people, be exposed to more facts. A child will have to learn more things just to grow up; a citizen will need to know more to function in society.

As more and more technical competence is required to earn a living, each person will have to give over a larger proportion of his learning capacity to his occupation.

The gap between professionals and technicians on the one hand and unskilled labor on the other will grow. Already, Miller points out, there is unemployment in the unskilled group, and at the same time a shortage of people with advanced skills.

Increasingly, even competent people will have to be supported by information-gathering devices: digests of literature, libraries, computer memories and ingenious display systems. Finally, more and more jobs will simply become too much for one man to handle. The team will take over.

In many laboratories and in the technologically-advanced industries, this has already happened. Teams or task groups are formed to solve a specific problem and are then dissolved, and new groups come together to attack new problems. This approach will become increasingly common, not only in industry but in universities and government.
DON'T MISS: Disneyland's Carousel of Progress: GE's 21st century city (1968)
Genius discouraged

Miller poses the question: "How are these experts to be rewarded?" Who gets the credit? What will replace the sense of personal satisfaction, the individual reputation and fame that can be won by someone who accomplishes an important task? Can a task group become famous?

Even the expert's pleasure in knowledge itself may be soured by his awareness that his specialized knowledge is valuable only as it serves the group's purposes. Only strong motivation can push a person to the limit of his capacity, Miller says; a society increasingly dependent on an intellectual and technological elite will have to devise rewards to keep the anonymous genius at work.

Margaret Mead is an anthropologist who has concentrated on the different roles of the family and of the two sexes in various societies ever since the publication of her celebrated "Coming of Age in Samoa" in 1928. For the commission, she considered "the nature and quality of relations between men and women, and the decisiveness of sex as a determinant of social roles."
By Andrew Squibb, Jr. in the Arizona Republic (Phoenix, AZ) January 2, 1968
The "contemporary American style," Dr Mead wrote, has such characteristics as early marriage; early parenthood for all couples; a separate home for each parent-and-child family, with relatives - including grown children - generally excluded; increasing involvement of men in domestic duties and increasing job-holding by wives to support ever-higher standards of consumption.
Today's family may fade away, like horse and buggy
If this pattern continues as the desired objective in the affluent countries, she predicted, there will be a significant result: It will become the objective in less-developed countries as well, and it will tend to counteract efforts to control population.

Sex may matter less

But the pattern may not persist. Partly in order to meet the population problem, the affluent societies may decide to take advantage of the current and developing biological revolution and to make full use of contraception, artificial insemination and even "extra-uterine gestation," in which the test tube and incubator would take the place of natural pregnancy.

That would lead to an emphasis on small families, to many childless marriages and even to a situation in which child-bearing and child-rearing are restricted to a few specialized couples; "the rest of the population would be free to function - for the first time in history - as individuals."

Then what? The sexes would be less differentiated. Boys and girls would be brought up and educated alike; men and women would have the same set of demands made on them. Temperament, talent and capabilities - not sex - would determine occupations and ways of life. Indeed, the "two-sex exclusive pair" (husband and wife) would no longer be the basic human relationship. People could live together in any combinations they like.

Perhaps the change would not be quite so radical. There might be efforts to maintain distinctions between primarily male and primarily female occupations, even though women are no longer mothers or housewives; couples might still live together as man and wife.

This might not last long, however. There would be rebellion against a "sex-typing" that ignores individual differences and is no longer supported by the age-old basis of sex-differentiation: the economic necessities of the home and the rearing of children.

Employment pattern

All this, Dr. Mead points out, represents an enormous change, not only to social habits but also to the beliefs that underlie them. The new style of behaviour might prompt counter-revolutions that would limit sexual freedom, turn people back into the home and subordinate individual creativity to society's need for "docile parents, workers and citizens."

Herman Kahn and Anthony Wiener probe the future primarily by extrapolation - studying trends and projecting them to the Year 2000 while making allowances for probable developments.

Adding large doses of sociology, military, gamesmanship and psychology, they produced a major study, "Toward the Year 2000: Framework for Speculation," that was published by the Macmillan Company in the fall. It included a look at the economic American in 2000.

Of a total population of 318 million, they think some 60 percent will be in the labor force, a slightly higher proportion than now. The rise will be due to an increase in the percentage of women who work, largely because part-time and intermittent jobs will be more available and attractive. Fewer men over 65 will be working (pension plans) and fewer boys of 18 and 19 (longer education).

Fewer Americans will be working in factories (manufacturing will account for a fifth of all non-farm jobs, compared with almost a third today). More will be working in stores, pared with a third today).

Less work, more pay

In all industries, wages will be up sharply. Average hourly gross earnings in manufacturing will be up from $2.61 (in 1965) to $11.50; in retail trade from $1.82 to $7.40; in agriculture from less than a dollar to $5.10.

People will work less - seven-hour days, five-day weeks, 10 holidays, four-week vacations - about 1,600 hours a year. The standard of living will nevertheless be between three and six times as high as now. The average personal income per family will be about $20000; 27 percent of all families will have incomes over $25000 a year.

These projections are for what Kahn and Wiener call a "standard society." What if we go off the standard? Perhaps the increased incomes, reduced work week, earlier retirement, longer vacations, better public services, and a general decrease in tension as living gets easier and even the international situation cools down, will change people's attitudes.

There would be a new emphasis on leisure and recreation, and the "leisure-oriented society" would make its appearance. Fewer people would work - say 56 percent of the population. They would average about 21 hours a week, or 1100 hours a year (four-day weeks, 13-week vacations).
ALSO SEE: Blade Runner, the classic movie from 1982 starring Harrison Ford, imagined a dystopian world in 2019
Provided individual productivity increases sharply over the next 32 years, the national output in a leisure society could still be three times today's; incomes would remain high, and people who chose not to work could probably get help from family and friends; public services would keep a floor under living standards; the economic and social pressure to conform, to work, to make money might diminish. It would be a different kind of America.

Someone is listening

Some of the pressures that law professor Harry Kalven expects to assault our privacy in the year 2000 are already in evidence; others will come with new technology and social attitudes.

The most obvious danger is that the almost limitless refinement of eavesdropping and surveillance techniques may make it impossible ever to be sure that one is not being watched or overheard - by the government, by a business competitor, by an insurance company lawyer, or by a curious neighbor.

As people accumulate insurance, pension plans, medical plans, there will be a sharp increase in the amount of facts being collected about everyone. The computer's vast memory capacity will facilitate the collection of unerasable records: kindergarten intelligence scores, high school deans' reprimands, medical checkups, traffic violations, memberships, job evaluations. As Kalven says, "the society will have lost its benign capacity to forget."

Changing standards may force increasing disclosure of the private lives of prominent people. The public taste for peeking as a form of amusement may spur new forms of entertainment like "Candid Camera." Research in the social sciences will continue to lean on interviewing, personality testing, surreptitious observation and listening - and neat computerization of the findings.

To retain privacy

Finally, Kalven suggests, the decline of religious observance, of the family group and even of the habit of reading may deprive people of three traditional ways of being separate and private.

Are countermeasures possible? Psychologists and psychiatrists may have to devise therapy for loss of privacy. Lawyers and legislators will have to develop legal remedies, not only to curb eavesdropping, but to establish guidelines as to the limits of public interest. Perhaps public opinion can be made more sensitive to the values of being left alone - through a program of education for privacy, for example.

It may even be possible to develop new social devices that will insure some moments of privacy, such as some kind of secular version of a religious retreat. Things may be so bad in the Year 2000, Kalven suggests, that someone will make a fortune "merely by providing, on a monthly, weekly, daily or even hourly basis, a room of one's own."
NOW SEE THIS: 30 retro-futuristic space-age inventions, including several we're still waiting for

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In the 1950s & 60s, futurism experts predicted an amazing Y2K with flying cars & a cure for the common cold - Click Americana

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If you've been to Disney's Tomorrowland, you probably already have a good idea of how our mid-century forbears thought our present (or, rather, near past) played out. And that over-the-top sci-fi fantasy was a mere snapshot of their big dreams! Looking back, however, it turns out there was a lot they got right.

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Drawing, collage, cutouts

Found objects

Layered paper/ cardboard constructions

*Designs/ artwork must remain clear of the slots.

*One side of your artwork may be facing the wall.

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Out of This World: Illustrations by Jeff Drew | Inspiration Grid

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Jeff Drew is an award-winning illustrator from Albuquerque who has gained recognition for his witty and sarcastic artwork.

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What is the Eames 'House of Cards'?

Eames House Of Cards Pattern Original Deck 1952 Tigrett Enterprises

The Eames 'House of Cards' was a diversely creative toy which, typical of the Eames's designs, aimed at children and adults alike. There were two packs produced. The first, in 1952, consisted of the 'pattern deck' which contained fifty-four cards with a wide variety of textured and/or colored patterns on the one side and a black asterisk on the other.

The second set, produced later, utilized photographs in place of the colored finishes, thus giving it its name of 'picture deck'. Both sets of cards had 6 slits in them, two on each side and one at each end which allowed the cards to slot into each other, enabling them to create a vastly diverse architectural adventure, especially after the two decks were combined.

The Eames cards were printed by the American Playing Card Company and distributed by Tigrett Enterprises and were produced until the company folded in 1961. In 1953, a larger version called the ' Giant House Of Cards' was released. The Eames' would also use the idea for the 1970 ' Computer House Of Cards', made as a gift for attendees of the IBM pavilion at the World Fair in Osaka, Japan. Production was continued in the later 60's by Creative Playthings of Prineton, New Jersey for a short perdiod.

The 'House of Cards' also appeared in Europe through the German company Otto Maier and English company Summit Games who produced them under licence from Tigrett.

We decided that the best method of determining the generations of the House Of Cards is best done per region as the US and European versions worked very different years.

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Eames House Of Cards, Eames Cards - Eames.com

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What is the Eames 'House of Cards'? Eames House Of Cards Pattern Original Deck 1952 Tigrett Enterprises The Eames 'House of Cards' was a diversely creative toy which, typical of the Eames's designs, aimed at children and adults alike. There were two packs produced.

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This image is among the most famous in British post-war art. It has come to define the rise of consumer society in the mid to late 1950s and is an icon of Pop art, although the original collage created in 1956, on which this print is based, pre-dates that phenomenon by several years.

In 1956 Richard Hamilton took part in the This is Tomorrow exhibition at the Whitechapel Art Gallery. For this group show teams of artists and architects were invited to create discrete zones that accorded with their vision of the future. Hamilton worked with artist John McHale (1922-78) and architect John Voelcker on the second zone, presenting a sort of funfair vision of the future where sensual perception was stimulated and confused and images culled from a range of sources formed an iconography for the modern world.

As part of his contribution to the exhibition catalogue Hamilton made a collage called Just what is it that makes today's home's so different, so appealing? (Kunsthalle Tübingen, Zundel Collection) that was also made into a poster. In planning the collage, Hamilton typed a list of categories he planned to incorporate: 'Man, Woman, Food, History, Newpapers, Cinema, Domestic Appliances, Cars, Space, Comics, TV, Telephone, Information' (quoted in Richard Hamilton, 1992, p.149). Imagery that fitted into Hamilton's categories were sourced from a stash of American magazines that McHale had brought back from the United States. He found the work's title in a caption to an illustration in the cast-off trimmings from the magazines. The finished collage presents all the multiple ways of communicating information available at that time, reflecting Hamilton's ironic interest in popular culture and modern technology. It shows a domestic interior complete with armchairs, coffee tables, pot plants and lamps. Such domestic appliances as a hoover, a television showing a woman talking on the phone on its screen, and a tape recorder that would have been considered state of the art in the 1950s now appear extremely out-dated. A framed comic strip on the wall, sandwiched between a traditional nineteenth century portrait and a window onto a movie theatre, also belongs to a passed era. Prophetically in the centre of the work, a crowned FORD motorcar logo alludes to cars; it is a similar size to the head of the muscular man, standing in a body-builder's pose next to it. He holds a giant lollipop bearing the word 'POP' at the level of his groin, pointing towards the semi-naked woman sitting in a ridiculously artificial pose on the sofa opposite.

Representations of interiors have preoccupied Hamilton for many years. In 1990 he wrote that the objective of his 1956 collage:

was to throw into the cramped space of a living room some representation of all the objects and ideas crowding into our post-war consciousness: my 'home' would have been incomplete without its token life-force so Adam and Eve struck a pose along with the rest of the gadgetry. The collage had a didactic role in the context of a didactic exhibition, This is Tomorrow, in that it attempted to summarize the various influences that were beginning to shape post-war Britian. We seemed to be taking a course towards a rosy future and our changing, Hi-Tech, world was embraced with a starry-eyed confidence; a surge of optimism which took us into the 1960s. Though clearly an 'interior' there are complications that cause us to doubt the categorisation. The ceiling of the room is a space-age view of Earth. The carpet is a distant view of people on a beach. It is an allegory rather than a representation of a room.
(Quoted in Exteriors, Interiors, Objects, People, p.44.)

As its title indicates, this print is an upgraded version of an earlier image, already itself a remake. In 1992 Hamilton created an edition of colour facsimiles of the 1956 collage, printed by laserjet, altering the title to reflect on a retrospective view of the past. Just what was it that made yesterday's homes so different, so appealing?(originally in Tate Collection P78920, now in Tate archive TGA 20071/7) was created using the Canon printer that Hamilton had access to while participating in a series of programmes called QED run by the BBC. For this commission, he had created Just what is it that makes today's homes so different? (Tate ), an image that satirises the world of the 1956 collage and contemporary culture in relation to it, using a Quantel Paintbox application to collage digitally for the first time. Having already scanned the 1956 collage, Hamilton then produced the facsimile Just what was it that made yesterday's homes so different, so appealing? in an edition of twenty-five plus three artist's proofs of which Tate's copy is the third. Expanding the possibilities of using digital technology to create art has become a central preoccupation for Hamilton since the 1990s and he is always looking for improvements in ink and printing quality. In 2004 he released a more long-lasting version of the image in an upgraded edition intended to replace the first. Just what was it that made yesterday's homes so different, so appealing?(upgrade) was printed using an Epson Inkjet printer with pigmented inks by Hamilton's son Rod at Hamilton's studio in Oxfordshire and editioned according to the 1992 version. Both versions of the print were distributed by Alan Cristea, London.

Further reading
Richard Hamilton, exhibition catalogue, Tate Gallery, London 1992, pp.148-9, reproduced p.149.
Richard Hamilton: Exteriors, Interiors, Objects, People, exhibition catalogue, Kunstumuseum Winterthur, Kestner-Gesellschaft Hannover and IVAM, Centre Julio Gonzalez. Valencia 1990.
Richard Hamilton, exhibition catalogue, Solomon R, Guggenheim Museum, New York, Städlische Galerie im Lenbachhaus, Munich and Kunsthalle Tübingen 1974, pp.24-5, reproduced p.25 in colour.

Elizabeth Manchester
May 2007
Does this text contain inaccurate information or language that you feel we should improve or change? We would like to hear from you.

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‘just what was it that made yesterday’s homes so different

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'Just what was it that made yesterday's homes so different, so appealing? (upgrade)', Richard Hamilton, 2004 | Tate

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This image is among the most famous in British post-war art. It has come to define the rise of consumer society in the mid to late 1950s and is an icon of Pop art, although the original collage created in 1956, on which this print is based, pre-dates that phenomenon by several years.

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Patty Carroll, 2018 Digital Photograph 22″ x 22″ / 38″ x 38″

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Patty Carroll – SHERRY LEEDY CONTEMPORARY ART

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In Patty Carroll’s ongoing photographic series, Anonymous Women, each densely patterned image focuses on a lone woman that is practically invisible. Each is merged, concealed, overwhelmed, and seemingly taken over by her excessive household trappings, careening toward the absurd. Her domestic demise looms large as she is inevitably done in by her own possessions and obsessions. Her home becomes the site of claustrophobic perfectionism leading to tragedy and danger, with scenes of mishap and horror, inspired by many sources including the game of Clue.

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Electric Dreams - a Festival of Womanpower

​CELEBRATING WOMEN'S ROLE IN ENERGY
Electric Dreams is a 2024 festival of womanpower to mark the centenary of the Electrical Association for Women (EAW), founded on 12 November 1924.
Our aims are:

To enlighten participants about energy generation and use

To highlight women’s pioneering role in the electricity industry

To spread awareness of the climate crisis and the measures needed to reduce its impact

To celebrate and inspire the women shaping our futures

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Tue 24 Sept: Design Sprint Workshop

Fri 3 October: Refine & Complete Outcomes

Fri 11 October: Pack Artwork for Transportation

Mon 14 October: Exhibition Set up & Installation

Fri 18 October: Exhibition Opening & Private View

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1+ finished outcomes on pre-cut, interlocking panel boards

Must be modular and capable of connecting with others

Should reflect playful exploration of electricity, connectivity, and transformation

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By the end of this workshop, you will be able to:

1. Explore and analyse everyday electrical and technological objects from the home, identifying key design features that can inspire creative new ideas.

2. Work collaboratively in small teams to develop exciting and imaginative design ideas, using everyone’s input to create something unique.

3. Experiment with art and design principles, applying creative techniques to transform everyday objects into playful, interlocking panel designs.

4. Build and create outcomes on interlocking panels that reinterpret household objects in new ways, showing how shapes and forms can fit together for an interactive exhibition piece.

By the end of the project, you will be able to:

5. Communicate and present your design outcomes, explaining how you turned everyday objects into creative designs, and sharing the story behind your work.

6. Reflect on the design and making process, thinking about how technology in the home can spark new ideas for design, and how your work can be part of an engaging exhibition experience.

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https://www.michaelcraigmartin.co.uk Use of line, colour, imagery.

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https://www.michaelcraigmartin.co.uk

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https://www.michaelcraigmartin.co.uk

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Matthew Lacroix

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Official Patent Tan Colour Blueprint Diagram Filament Bulb

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Thomas Edison Electric Light Bulb 1880 Official Patent Tan Color Blueprint Diagram Filament Bulb Science Engineering Math Educational Sign Decoration Cool Wall Decor Art Print Poster 12x18

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Andra Formen a Malmö, Sweden based design studio has taken up the task to explore the possibilities of salvaging and recycling that most ubiquitous of urban modes of transportation, the electric scooter. The result is E-metabolism, a collection of table lamps, indoor garden systems, floor lamps, seating, and even a grill.

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Here Today, Gone Tomorrow: Artist Ian Murray

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Here Today, Gone Tomorrow: Artist Ian Murray

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Here Today, Gone Tomorrow_ Artist Ian Murray Captures Fleeting Moments

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31 Retro Color Palettes for Throwback Designs

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In the digital world, plenty of designers choose color palettes that create an ultramodern, even futuristic feel. Whether it’s colorblocking with vivid shades or designing a sleek mosaic of whites and…

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Task 3:  Objects and Appliances Research

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Task 3:  Objects and Appliances Research

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Find examples of at least 3 objects and appliances you can’t live without.

Do at least three things:

Make contour drawings of the objects

Make rubbings

Storyboard instructions on how to use it /how you use it/ unusual uses/ a day in the life of …

Make a mini model

Post your visual reference to Padlet