Future Imperfect

Future Imperfect describes and discusses a variety of technological revolutions that might happen over the next few decades, their implications, and how to deal with them. Topics range from encryption and surveillance through biotechnology and nanotechnology to life extension, mind drugs, virtual reality, and artificial intelligence. One theme of the book is that the future is radically uncertain. Technological changes already begun could lead to more or less privacy than we have ever known, freedom or slavery, effective immortality or the elimination of our species, and radical changes in life, marriage, law, medicine, work, and play. We do not know which future will arrive, but it is unlikely to be much like the past. It is worth starting to think about it now.

Ade Patience can see the future and it's destroying his life. When the seventeen-year-old Mantlo High School student knocks himself unconscious, he can see days and decades into his own future. Ade's the best of Denver's "divination" underground and eager to join the heralded Mantlo Diviners, a group of similarly enabled teens. Yet, unlike the Diviners, Ade Patience doesn't see the future out of curiosity or good will; Ade gives himself concussions because he's addicted to the high, the Buzz, he gets when he breaks the laws of physics. And while there have been visions he's wanted to change, Ade knows the Rule: You can't change the future, no matter how hard you try. His memory is failing, his grades are in a death spiral, and both Ade's best friend and his shrink are begging him to stop before he kills himself. Ade knows he needs to straighten-out. Luckily, the stunning Vauxhall Rodolfo has just transferred to Mantlo and, as Ade has seen her in a vision two years previously, they're going to fall in love. It's just the motivation Ade needs to kick his habit. Only things are a bit more complicated. Vauxhall has an addiction of her own, and, after a a vision in which he sees Vauxhall's close friend, Jimmy, drown while he looks on seemingly too wasted to move, Ade realizes that he must break the one rule he's been told he can't The pair must overcome their addictions and embrace their love for each other in order to do the impossible: change the future.

Future Imperfect critically examines the role played by cultural institutions in producing present-day and future contexts for the production, dissemination, and reception of contemporary art in the Middle East and North Africa. It offers historical contexts for discussions that have become increasingly urgent in recent years--the role of culture in a time of conflict and globalization--and an in-depth critique of the state of cultural institutions in an age of political upheaval, social unrest, exuberant cultural activity, ascendant neoliberal forms of privatization, social activism, and regional uncertainty. Based on collective input from numerous contributors and interlocutors, this volume brings together internationally renowned academics, critics, activists, filmmakers, artists, and other independent cultural practitioners to consider how new infrastructures and institutions can effectively emerge within such fraught and dynamic contexts. What is needed in terms of infrastructure for cultural production today, and how, crucially, can we speculatively propose new infrastructures and institutions in the context of present realities? Visual Culture in the Middle East Vol. 3 Supported by the Kamel Lazaar Foundation Contributors Leila Al-Shami*, Monira Al Qadiri, Hoor Al-Qasimi, Anahi Alviso-Marino, AMBS Architects, Stephanie Bailey, Eray Çayli, Rachel Dedman, Elizabeth Derderian, Anthony Downey, Karen Exell, Reema Salha Fadda, Wafa Gabsi, Hadia Gana, Adalet R. Garmiany, Baha Jubeh, Suhair Jubeh, Amal Khalaf, Kamel Lazaar, Jens Maier-Rothe, Guy Mannes-Abbott, Doreen Mende, Lea Morin, Jack Persekian, Wided Rihana Khadraoui*, Rijin Sahakian, Gregory Sholette, Tom Snow, Lois Stonock*, Nile Sunset Annex*, Ania Szremski, Christine Tohme, Toleen Touq, Williams Wells, Ala Younis, Yasmine Zidane (*online projects)

IT’S A CLIMATE CHANGED WORLD, and the River Rhone has flooded the town of Arles in France. Helen and Isha leave to join their daughter and eleven-month-old granddaughter, Ayo, in England. In Calais, Isha, who has Ugandan-Asian ancestry, is told that new rules mean she will be immediately deported if she crosses the Channel. Faced with a terrible dilemma, Helen chooses to stay with her. Homeless and stateless, they seek refuge in a friend’s Swiss mountain chalet, but to get there, they must avoid main roads and immigration checkpoints. They decide to walk along the Via Francigena, an ancient pilgrimage route from Canterbury to Rome, but now also the preferred escape corridor for climate refugees fleeing north. Jana resolves to follow them, though this is not a simple decision. The family communicates whenever and however they can while battling exhaustion, terror and the virulent xenophobia of people struggling to protect their increasingly scarce resources. Their journey does not end in Switzerland. The end of their story is a new beginning.

Examines the first eight cinematic adaptations of Dick's fiction in light of their literary sources.

In spite of changes that threatened her goal, Tori Baylor has at last become a trainee with her ballet company in Orlando, Florida. The year ahead looks golden as she anticipates performing with the Company’s corps de ballet in major productions as well as with its outreach group, Ballet II. I’m so lucky, she tells herself. I’ve made it to trainee, and I have two best friends, a wonderful boyfriend (YESSS!), and a great family. Please, no changes to any of these. But changes continue to make life uncertain for Tori. Some are surprising, some are worrying, and some bring loss and her first tastes of sorrow. In a cold and lonely place, she thinks sadly, I used to talk about the future perfect, the time when all I’ve dreamed of and worked for will have come to be. Now my life is looking more like a future imperfect. In this strange year of highs and lows, promises and problems, Tori struggles to keep her spirits up. Where is all of this leading? One thing is sure: she’ll need to be strong to face the year’s final challenge.

Capt. James T. Kirk's historic voyages have seldom been recorded fro, the vantage point of those who served "below deck" on the Starship Enterprise™ NCC-1701. This new trilogy reveals the courage and dedication of the men and women who constitute Kirk's crew, as well as the unearthly dangers faced by any who dare to explore the final frontier! THE JANUS GATE book two of three FUTURE IMPERFECT On a desperate rescue mission to recover their missing captain, the shuttle Copernicus and its crew have become lost in time and space, transported by a powerful subspace vortex to a hellish future time line where the brutal Gorn Hegemony has all but conquered the United Federation of Planets. Stranded on a transformed Federation colony, now a Gorn mining world worked by oppressed human slaves, Helmsman Hikaru Sulu meets an older version of a man he barely knows, Pavel Chekov, who now leads a ragtag band of freedom fighters against the Gorns. Teamed together for the first time, Sulu and Chekov must struggle to survive in a future that should never have happened!

A harrowing new adventure featuring one of Marvel Comics' most enduring characters. Hounded by the U.S. Army for crimes he did not commit, the Hulk seeks refuge in an experimental procedure that will permanently transform him back to his human incarnation of Dr. Robert Bruce Banner--and be rid of his green-skinned alter ego forever. Chapter opening illustrations.