This is an image I created in early 1999, and rendered to print resolution. I modelled and rendered it in a ray tracer called Imagine, which I used for about a decade.

It plays around with a subject that fascinates me - old visions of the future, especially from the era of the Great Depression. It seems to me that the worse conditions became all over the country - and the world, really - the wilder and more hopeful people's visions of the future became. Because trouble was everywhere and affected nearly everyone in sight these ideas for the future were less personal - "What wonderful things will I be doing when this is over?" - but truly universal, embodying visions of how entire societies could be changed for the better. Of course, we'd still all have our own airplanes, autogyros, or rockets.

There's a lot of material in here from the New York World's Fair of 1939, as well as old science fiction and a book about "Technocracy" ( a social movement determined to remake the structure of prices in terms of the actual energy used to create... anything).

(I have modified the color balance of this file so that it will print more true to its original; for that reason, as you see it here on your monitor you’re seeing it a bit paler and greener than it ought to be.)