The Ubiquity of Dust

 

The World War Terminus (WWT), a type of nuclear holocaust, had been bloody and destructive - a symbol of the human tendency towards self-destruction and the destruction of everything. No one remembers exactly why it started, but it led to the extinction of many animals, times of uncertainty, and a society of isolation and apathy.

The cities, disordered, dying and almost uninhabited, lie under a hostile blanket of radioactive dust that the sun does not dare to penetrate.

Science has built robots so realistic they can be used as workers or assistants. There is something disturbingly robotic about humans and something disturbingly human about androids: a malice, a latent cruelty. Ironically, there is fear that androids could become people, while people look more and more like androids.

The post-war is a dying world in which humanity struggles for relevance. It had become so easy to imitate the real that reality had become a commodity, a valuable source of power. There is an obsession with living animals, like a nostalgia for the natural world or, more correctly, for the power to dominate it. Owning a living animal is considered a civic virtue and a symbol of status.

Individual and collective memories, prove to be very unreliable, a fragile cement for the unification of the species. Things are real if a significant number of people say they are real, and reality will be nothing more than a fable that we have learned to agree with.

Robotic Ballet Company Takes Center Stage: Art or Artificiality?

Last night, a groundbreaking performance by a ballet company composed entirely of humanoid robots left audiences in awe and divided opinions on the role of technology in the arts.

The company, aptly named The Robotic Ballet Company  features robots that were specifically designed to perform classical ballet movements with stunning precision and fluidity. From graceful pirouettes to elegant leaps, the robots executed each move flawlessly, eliciting gasps and applause from the audience. But while some viewers were impressed by the robots technical abilities, others were left feeling uneasy about the integration of technology in the traditionally human art form of ballet.