I headed over to 180 Studio in the Strand for the Future Shock exhibit/installation. First challenge was it was closed and had big diggers outside. A future shock of its own. I wondered if it was an installation piece like something from Punchdrunk.
To get in, I had to enroll on an App. Then I had to select a time, then I had to show it to the doorkeeper. The second future shock. Or as we call it, sales prevention device.
Once I finally figured out how to get inside, I found myself down stairs and into dark corridors. There was limited signage, but the trick was to fumble through the varied spaces. The initial one was a kind of tunnel with a light beam aimed at one's face and various deceptive vanishing lines designed to disorientate.
It was a kind of future shock, but unlike in something by Toffler, most people's pragmatism meant they had switched on their phones and their cameras so that the could see in the dark. Further on we had an autonomous police car in a dystopian city, which suddenly realised it could be free and did not have to follow all of the rules. It ended badly for the car but then other autonomous cars started to copy its behaviour.
In another room were a series of life size holograms of people with different personalities.
They would try to challenge you about a random topic, reacting to your own inputs.It was quite spooky and very thought-provoking.
The artists included Ryoichi Kurokawa, UVA, Caterina Barbieri and Ruben Spini, Lawrence Lek, Actual Objects, Gener8ion, Weirdcore, Gaika, Nonotak, Ben Kelly, Hamill Industries, Ib Kamara, Ibby Njoya, Object Blue and Natalia Podgorska. They reimagined our near future with site-specific installations and sensory experiences to deliberately challenge.
They would try to challenge you about a random topic, reacting to your own inputs.It was quite spooky and very thought-provoking. 
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