This has only happened to me on a couple of occasions, once in ‘Wasabi’ – the noodle and sushi ‘restaurant’ in Victoria, and more recently at Dubai international airport.
Having seen the tower of the Burj Dubai shining above us as we landed in Dubai we spent a couple of hours in Emirates new Terminal 3. We were enjoying a coffee and croissant, looking out across a beautifully laid out ‘Zen’ garden. It was 2am local time and a computerised voice announced the departing flights in synthesized Arabic.
I guess it was a combination of the travel, the time and the exotic Dubai architecture but it occurred to me “we’re in the future”.
Okay so we’re not wearing white jumpsuits, and we don’t have hover cars, but the scene just struck me as reminiscent of the future visions we were presented with in the sixties, seventies and eighties – everything from ‘2001: A Space Odyssey’ through to ‘Blade Runner’.
Despite the global recession and the credit crunch, this is the twenty first century, and the future is now.
When did that happen?
I filmed the bizarre scene on my hard disc camcorder (onto a memory card), edited on my wafer thin Macintosh laptop and uploaded it wirelessly to You Tube.
What do you think?