Written by Alice McMurtry The Toronto Reference Library’s latest exhibition Retro Futures, celebrating the 50th anniversary of Apollo 11, captures the imagination in its exploration of science fiction and visions of the future. The exhibition draws on the Library’s significant Merrill collection of Science Fiction and Fantasy; a treasure trove for any sci-fi fan, the collection boasts 72,000 objects, from pulp magazines to works by Ray Bradbury, Jules Verne, and others. Themed around the subjects of futuristic travel, habitat, and communication. Retro Futures takes a deep dive into what science fiction authors and artists of the 1950s and 60s envisioned for the future. These predictions and visions range from the whimsically far-fetched to the eerily accurate. People in the early 21st century, would, for example, be able to communicate with denizens of the deep in the oceans. Flying buzzsaws would make for extremely efficient war machines, chopping fighter planes neatly in two. Whole cities would emerge inside spherical space stations on the Moon. Perhaps you would be able to listen to the radio and watch television with your watch? If you wanted to communicate with loved ones, you might be able to do it through the use of giant screens. Although the exhibition celebrates these futuristic visions and their accompanying optimism, it also delves into the anxieties that gripped artists and authors in the 1950s and 1960s. A small section devoted to robotics explores the unsettling possibility of AI turning against us. The artwork on the pulp magazine covers is striking, capturing a still commonly-felt anxiety about technology getting away from us. To add to this atmosphere of fear and wonder, a recording of Strauss’s Also sprach Zarathustra plays on a loop during the exhibition, a nod to Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey. The exhibition wraps up with a retrospective on Apollo 11, showcasing newspaper headlines from around the world, memorabilia, and photographs capturing the historic event.
Retro Futures shines a spotlight on an important historical moment, one of great discovery and leaps being taken in the scientific field, but also one of uncertainty about the future. The imaginative force behind speculative fiction is powerful, and Retro Futures pays tribute to that, prompting the visitor to ask: what is possible? There have been many great leaps and bounds made recently in the scientific community, from AI to smart technology, and Retro Futures captures the drive of those who have created some of the globe's most innovative technology. What may be surprising to casual readers is that many well-known speculative fiction authors got their start in pulp magazines of the mid-twentieth century. The pulps, so called because they were printed cheaply on acid-treated wood pulp paper, made speculative fiction accessible to the general public. Authors that wrote for the pulps include some of speculative fiction’s best-loved names, including Ray Bradbury, Arthur C. Clarke, and Isaac Asimov. Speaking with Wendy McPhee, the curator at the TRL, she hopes that visitors come away with a better sense of the library’s unique special collections. The Merril Collection, in particular, is recognized as the preeminent speculative fiction collection in Canada. The neat thing about the Merril Collection is that it is accessible to the public at the library’s Lillian H. Smith branch; visitors are welcome to peruse books in the special collection in one of the library’s reading rooms. The exhibition Retro Futures is on at the Toronto Reference Library until July 28th in their TD Gallery. Free tours of the exhibition with a library docent run every Tuesday at 2 pm.
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