AUTOMATED

Time has been truncated by technology. The gap has narrowed over time between theory and invention. A century lapsed between Newton’s principles and Watt’s steam engine, but it took only ten years to go from the Atomic bomb to the Hydrogen bomb. This rapidly expanding volume of knowledge could create an economic paradise on earth; it could equally lead to a violent end to all civilization. Too few of us recognise that while technology solves countless old problems it also creates many new ones. The overall benefits of technology are so much greater and more obvious than the drawbacks that we tend cheerfully to assume away the costs altogether. There is an old saying that you cannot bask in the morning sun of a new day without casting a shadow behind you.

Teetering on the brink of reality, ‘Automated’ is a satirical look at what our society might look like when humans are fazed out of employment; replaced by an intricate system of machines that follow orders. Material and social improvements have bettered our lives thanks to technical advance, yet the mark of economic and social impact is largely unknown.