Futurist David Houle shares his vision of a brave new world

The future is coming sooner than you think. According to sci-fi author William Gibson, it’s already here — just not evenly distributed. 

David Houle agrees. He’s the best-selling author of “The Shift Age” and Ringling College of Art and Design’s official “futurist in residence.” In his view, some people are living in the world of tomorrow right now. Unfortunately, the whole world hasn’t caught up. Too many people are stuck in the past and approaching 21st-century problems with 20th-century solutions. 

Houle offers an antidote for this “legacy thinking” at his upcoming “21st Century Thought and Trends” workshop series at Ringling College’s Lifelong Learning Academy. In our recent talk, we focused on the changes unfolding in art and entertainment.

Once upon a time, most people read the same newspapers and watched the same TV shows. Now, there’s no universal set of assumptions that artistic creators can speak to. How should creators respond?

I question your old version use of the word “universal.” Being in a global economy is certainly more “universal’ than a local or national economy. Memes can be global.

To put it another way: How can creators respond to a shrinking pool of shared cultural references?

By adapting. The best way to do that is by writing, painting or recording more than one version of their art.

That’s a creative approach—though it involves a lot more work.

Creative approaches often do. Artists who don’t like hard work shouldn’t be artists!

The internet offers instant availability to a wide variety of free art. How can working artists adapt and still make a living?

I’ve suggested artists create dual revenue streams. They’d offer one price for a physical piece of art and a much cheaper price for a potentially infinite number of downloadable digital images of the artwork. A website can prevent downloads without payment. The purchaser of the physical piece of art would have enhanced value due to the exposure of the images of their purchase.

How can the creators of relatively long-form media still grab people’s attention?

With difficulty. I’ve done personal research on how people read books. The conclusion is that I will not write a book longer than 125 pages.

What about low-tech entertainment? Might the desire for unmediated experience lead to a modest resurgence of live theater and hand-made, one-of-a-kind visual art pieces?

When it comes to visual art, the simple answer is yes, people will pay for tactile one-of-a-kind art creations. But quality live theater isn’t readily available to mass audiences. It’s generally priced so that only the upper classes can afford to attend. That’s why opera, symphony and Broadway are largely attended by older, more affluent audiences.

What do you predict for the future of streaming entertainment?

The same thing I’ve said for at least seven years: The future of content, audio and video is streaming. Period.

What advice would you give to creative people starting out?

First, strive to be good at what you do. In a global marketplace, there’s much more competition. Second, expect to invest a lot of time becoming excellent in your chosen field. Malcolm Gladwell’s concept of 10,000 hours is a good rule-of-thumb for that. Third, be fully open to moving into new technologies. Art has always changed based upon technological advancements. The Impressionists came into being during the global expansion of photography. The invention of photography and the camera paved the way for abstraction and non-representational art. So even if you are working in some traditional medium, that medium and the audience and market will change due to technological innovation.

How does the deluge of visual and auditory input affect art appreciation and critical understanding?

It will vary by the individual and what they bring to the experience. I think the deluge you refer to is an acceleration of what occurred in the latter part of the 20th century — that merging of “high” and “popular art” that started in the 1960s and never stopped or slowed down. Today, we all live in Andy Warhol’s world.

Sarasota is famed as an arts community. Is our legacy secure in the future?

Only if we start thinking about the future. Sarasota stands at a critical juncture — but we lack any forum to deal with the changes ahead. We’re at a tipping point. We need to develop a consensus on where we want our city to go, and we need to do it sooner rather than later.

What can professional creators (artists, writers and performers et al) learn by taking your workshop?

A great deal. They can learn how emerging technologies will transform distribution and payment models; how the upcoming, massive changes in generations and demographics will affect their audiences; how they can learn new mediums, adapt and expand their markets; and the dramatic impact that a post-scarcity world will have on many art forms.

Once only 10% of the population actually “work,” will the rest be freed to pursue whatever crafts, experiments, or adventures that interest them?

Yes. As Arthur C. Clarke once said, “The goal of the future is to create full unemployment.”

And after that, the only problem left is the problem of what to do with your free time?

Exactly. I’ll end with a quote from Bertrand Russell on the subject: “To be able to fill leisure intelligently is the last product of civilization.”