In 2018, thanks to the generosity of Brian, with a friend Santiago, I visited Disney World at Orlando Florida. Incredible. The lasting memory of that visit is the Carousel of Progress.
This is a rotating theatre animatronic stage show, which rotates around 4 stages showing the progress of how a typical American family is living in the 1900s, 1920s, 1940s and 21st Century. As the stage rotates to the next act, the theme song “There’s a great big beautiful tomorrow” plays. It is astonishing. The typical American family is white, middle class and heteronormative.
In a way this is one of the points of departure for my carousel. I am interested in celebrating the beauty of real people. Not animatronic propaganda narratives. It also triggers the sci-fi side of my brain. Think about it, if one day we can transfer our human consciousness into a new body or sleeve, then won’t there be shops or clinics to facilitate the selection and fitting of those. And what will drive our selection of which new body or sleeve?
Maybe there will be a method of browsing through the bodies available. And how will pricing come into the equation – how do we put a price on beauty?