Moving Toward a Critical Dystopia
The exercise of power over humanity and nature increases in the future worlds that Lunar Braceros 2125-2148 and Sleep Dealer envision, especially with the expendability of laborers that will simply be killed off in order to save space on a shuttle for more profitable items, or become completely dehumanized as the integration between human and robot translates to “sameness” for the corporations using their labor. Despite these dystopic futures, there is a vision for a utopia that emerges from the critical dystopia created by Lydia and Memo. For Lydia, she represents a critical dystopia that is concerned with the preservation of historical and cultural memory, as well as collective action in order to take down a corrupt system. For Memo, his critical dystopia is an attempt to break down barriers; however, his collective action emerges much out of circumstance. Therefore, at the end of both texts, it is unclear if the critical dystopias will be enough to create a space in the future for those marginalized communities and it is through the creation of a future-history archive that some hope is offered to the future generations.But maybe there's a future for me here. On the edge of everything. A future with a past. If I connect. And fight.—Memo from Sleep Dealer