This slidecast offered an interesting point of view of the technological futuristic USSR during the cold war era. It did a good job highlighting the differences between the USSR and the United States. I liked the reoccurring theme that the purpose of several Russian technological futuristic images were for propaganda and strengthening the ideals of the state. With the strong ideological differences between the United States, it was interesting to look at the other side of the cold war. With Russia’s harsh environment, the giant weather station controlling the climate was a cool technological innovation. The other enemies, capitalism and America, were other good focuses of the slidecast. The acute differences between these two superpowers were well highlighted, with the focus in the United States being domestic comfort, and the focus of the USSR being space and technology of industry. The similarities were unsurprisingly the social values, where the heroes are men and the women were culturally unchanged. For future slidecasts, it would be good to add one or two more pictures of additional context.
I really enjoyed watching your podcast because of the comparing and contrasting between America’s and Russia’s ideas of the future. In addition, a lot of the actual technological innovations that you discussed were very interesting and fascinating to hear about why they wanted something of that nature. For example, I really liked how you had set us up with the idea about how having harsh weather conditions really affected Russia and then later went to describe how the weather stations in Russia were able to “combat natural disasters and save the day.” I think this was exceptionally interesting to mention because you spoke about how Russia wanted more power and control over nations and things such as energy sources. By adding on Russia’s desire to control nature, it really shows the audience how control and power was something valued heavily in the Soviet Union. In addition to this, I really liked how you pointed out that all of the pioneers that were in the weather station were men. Similar to discussions we have in class, its still really interesting to actually see how these gender roles played out in technology of the future. Also, emphasizing how these gender roles were the same in both the U.S and Russia just shows how stagnant society was with developing gender equality and removing stereotypical and heteronormative gender roles despite their very different cultures.
The slides did a good job of addressing he major hallmarks of technological futurism we addressed in class. The point about cultural stagnation and the view that only men would be ‘capable’ of being astronauts was on the nose and shows good attention to detail. I liked how you described the technological advancements as being created in opposition to enemies since that approach fits with the idea that technological futurism reveals the artist fears about the future. I was also intrigued by the comparisons between US and Soviet views of the futures that revealed most of their priorities for the future were more aligned than expected and the use of the Moscow fair to highlight the more subtle contrasts between the two.
I have but one small criticism, futurism is not meant to be bound the constraints of practicality so the comments about visions being ‘unrealistic’ felt a little off. Also, I think it would have been interesting to address how technological futurism is often used as propaganda since that seemed to be the case with the Soviet vision of the future.
I really enjoyed the narrative you created and I felt that it was well developed with a clear linear progression of ideas.
This slidecast offered an interesting point of view of the technological futuristic USSR during the cold war era. It did a good job highlighting the differences between the USSR and the United States. I liked the reoccurring theme that the purpose of several Russian technological futuristic images were for propaganda and strengthening the ideals of the state. With the strong ideological differences between the United States, it was interesting to look at the other side of the cold war. With Russia’s harsh environment, the giant weather station controlling the climate was a cool technological innovation. The other enemies, capitalism and America, were other good focuses of the slidecast. The acute differences between these two superpowers were well highlighted, with the focus in the United States being domestic comfort, and the focus of the USSR being space and technology of industry. The similarities were unsurprisingly the social values, where the heroes are men and the women were culturally unchanged. For future slidecasts, it would be good to add one or two more pictures of additional context.
I really enjoyed watching your podcast because of the comparing and contrasting between America’s and Russia’s ideas of the future. In addition, a lot of the actual technological innovations that you discussed were very interesting and fascinating to hear about why they wanted something of that nature. For example, I really liked how you had set us up with the idea about how having harsh weather conditions really affected Russia and then later went to describe how the weather stations in Russia were able to “combat natural disasters and save the day.” I think this was exceptionally interesting to mention because you spoke about how Russia wanted more power and control over nations and things such as energy sources. By adding on Russia’s desire to control nature, it really shows the audience how control and power was something valued heavily in the Soviet Union. In addition to this, I really liked how you pointed out that all of the pioneers that were in the weather station were men. Similar to discussions we have in class, its still really interesting to actually see how these gender roles played out in technology of the future. Also, emphasizing how these gender roles were the same in both the U.S and Russia just shows how stagnant society was with developing gender equality and removing stereotypical and heteronormative gender roles despite their very different cultures.
The slides did a good job of addressing he major hallmarks of technological futurism we addressed in class. The point about cultural stagnation and the view that only men would be ‘capable’ of being astronauts was on the nose and shows good attention to detail. I liked how you described the technological advancements as being created in opposition to enemies since that approach fits with the idea that technological futurism reveals the artist fears about the future. I was also intrigued by the comparisons between US and Soviet views of the futures that revealed most of their priorities for the future were more aligned than expected and the use of the Moscow fair to highlight the more subtle contrasts between the two.
I have but one small criticism, futurism is not meant to be bound the constraints of practicality so the comments about visions being ‘unrealistic’ felt a little off. Also, I think it would have been interesting to address how technological futurism is often used as propaganda since that seemed to be the case with the Soviet vision of the future.
I really enjoyed the narrative you created and I felt that it was well developed with a clear linear progression of ideas.