Imagining what the civilization of the future will always be something interesting. In the cinema of the 70s and 80s we saw it a lot, with works such as’ Blade Runner ‘or’Robocop‘imagining a future with Ciborgs and Flying cars. Yes, now we are closer to having Human ‘Improved’ as of the A kind flying cars, But what they didn’t imagine was something like Internet.
That is because it is much easier to visualize a future with improved elements of our present or that they solve a problem of the time. For example, if in the 70s they had cars, because in 30 years those cars would be flying. Something similar happened in La France of 1899. The toyr Armand Gervanis commissioned Jean-Marc Côté and other artists a series of illustrated cards for the 1900s World Exhibition of Paris.
In them, artists should imagine what life would be like in 2000. It is very curious to see the designs of their creations, the problems of their time they wanted to solve and their mentality. In some designs, they approached reality. In others they did not give abut they are really interesting because they allow us to see the reasoning of the time and, in the end, the known solutions that applied to problems, tasks and the daily life of their time.
In some cases it may seem that they were short of sight by not inventing something like the computer and that all designs are intrinsically linked to both the machinery of their time and fashion, but they are still a great sample of Paleofuturo.
Mobility and … an electric train
The cars in 1899 were more than surpassed. There were motor vehicles for a few years and, although they were not for personal use for the masses, there were … they existed. Mass manufacturing began in 1908 with the assembly chain of Henry Ford and the Ford tbut come on, cars didn’t get so much attention. At least these French artists.
What they wanted were both aquatic and aerial buses. Commercial flights were nothing more than a fantasy at that time (The Wright brothers They would not make the first motor flight until 1903 and the flights with passenger planes were unimaginable). What they had more by hand were the airships and the submarines.
What did they do? Create a boat with two huge bags to go both by air and by sea and an underwater bus. To go where? We will see it later, since underwater life was something they were passionate about.
Also peculiar is the electric train with Paris-Pekín path (there is nothing, only more than 8,000 kilometers in a straight line). Apart from a cabin that looks like that of a rocket, attracts attention that seems not to have wheelsbut an magnetized system like the one we can see in the magnetic levitation maglev. And we can also see personal and electrical skates. It sounds like electric scootersof electric skateboard and even the sandals to walk 250% faster.
Text voice system, audio and video call notes
Did something like smartphone take off from ingenuity? Well … no, really, but what these French artists had on hand was the phone, the cinematograph of the Lumière brothers Invented a few years before, the phonograph and the gramophone. They were quite recent inventions and were great in these futuristic cards. His combination is also magical.
In the designs, we can see how in the first card a person receives a message per roll to listen to him in his gramophone (such as WhatsApp voice notesbut much less snapshots and faces), news heard through the radio (something that was already brewing) on the second card, a man dictating a message to a machine that seems to make text into the third photo and … a video call system in the fourth photo?
It seems that the image of a person is being screened on a screen through a projector, the man is listening with the gramophone and is speaking at the same time. It is curious that this process needs an operator that controls machinery. It could not really be intricate, but with the media of the time, imagining something similar to a video call is very striking.
Heavy tasks with remote control
Two segments that continued to have manual tasks were field and agriculture. Even today, with all the advances we have, they are very physical works, so it is logical that, in 1899 they would imagine futures in which everything was automated.
In some cases they were not unchanged, such as that harvester that is controlled at a distance (ours we must handle them from within, but well, it is similar) and something more fanciful is the card that shows an operator inside a cabin controlling a complex robotic system that is raising a house.
It is not only the electric crane, but the arms that put the bricks or chisel part of the facade. Something they did not imagine was a GPS -controlled robot cutter Segway Navimowbut something is something.
The Roomba, the Robopeluquero and the 3D printer
And masons are not the only robots. In these cards we can see other ideas such as robopeluquero, or robobarbero, which really is not something we currently havebut well, there are razor. What is curious is that they invented the Robot vacuum cleaner Century and peak before it existed and popularized with an assistant robot that seems to be plugged in to a remote cable or control that controls the human.
It is funny because it has both the brush and the cushion in which the dirt is collecting, but I do not finish seeing that cane as a remote control. And something very ingenious is the machine that takes the measures to make a suit and transfer the information to a machine that expels the garment already made. It is like an early version of a 3D printer.
Rare things
Now, although all cards are tremendously imaginative, there are others that make us think “for what”. For example, in the superior collection we have A group playing under water, something that does not make any meaning Because either they play with gravity, it is simply … Criquet in the seabed. We also have a mailman in a flying vehicle distributing mail in a rural area, something that we can compare with drones that distribute packages.
And the two lower cards are unclassifiable. In the first we can see a machine that “processes” the books that the teacher chooses and that knowledge reaches the students. We no longer know if they are headphones and we would be talking about Audiobros Or yes, directly, it would be like in ‘Matrix‘, with all the knowledge that chewed to students’ minds. And the Submarine coffee scene is a chalura. The first because why they have a roof. The second because they cannot take off the escafandra.
In whatever, this prophetic vision did not have much luck. Gervais began producing some card games in 1899, but died during production, so The project remained in the limbo and the cards remained stored in a basement. The Archive of Gervais was purchased, but the card of the cards was hidden and it was not until 75 years later, when the Canadian writer Christopher Hyde found them and lent them to them Isaac Asimovthey could see the light again. They were published in the book ‘Futuredays: A Nineteenth Century Vision of the Year 2000‘1986 with Jean-Marc Côté as co-author.
There are many more cards that you can consult In Gallicthe website of the National Library of France. There are many more daily scenes with underwater activities (both recreational and hunting), several cards that show flying cars, somewhat somewhat … unusable and something as interesting as what seems to be a chick incubator. The singular thing is that, beyond the follies of some creations, They do not stop having their logic if we put ourselves in the minds of the artists of 1899 And, in addition, we can see similarities with current devices and techniques.
More information and images | National Library of France
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