Abstract

The early 1970s were driven by diverse Utopian energies. There was still power in ‘high-tech’ visions of material abundance and individual freedom, exemplified by the jet-pack, a key motif of mid-twentieth century Utopian optimism. A competing Utopian longing for ecological and convivial Utopian community was also being strongly promoted, such as in the 1974 ‘Open University’ reader Man-Made Futures. Often these two forces intersected, for example, the film Silent Running (1972). All elements meet in Rick Guidice’s illustrations for NASA; jet-packs move smiling colonists through the green abundance of gigantic space cities.
Such professional Utopian hubris was gloriously undermined by a simple Utopian desire articulated from everyday life. In 1971 BBC TV’s Tomorrow’s World placed newspaper advertisements asking people what they would like to see invented. Mrs ‘M.M.’ from Nottingham wanted a ‘four-legged chicken’ as it would ‘save a lot of argument in our house’.
Forty years later, we have neither jet-packs nor four-legged chickens. This paper asks what happened to derail these Utopian aspirations. It does so in order to ask serious questions about the roles of design futurism and technological determinism in visions of Utopia.