Speaking of the future

A topic often discussed at EbM is the future of transportation.

Our works are geographically separated in a way most institutions are not. We do this in part because we are building an arts organization for the future, one where these distances are not a limitation.

To that, this article from the Economist (admittedly, there are any number of articles from The Economist and just about every other magazine that I could have cited here) points out the most obvious way that our disparate sites may be temporally closer for human travelers within the next two decades.

"With increased connectivity between cars, driver aids will become much more sophisticated. A connected car would, for instance, receive not just information about a hazard detected by its own sensors, but also alerts from a vehicle farther along the road or around a blind corner.

Connectivity can also help provide more real-time information about traffic hold-ups, beyond that already provided by satellite-navigation devices. The addition of vehicle-to-infrastructure communication (V2I) takes things further still. Whereas the connected cars in Ann Arbor can change the timing of traffic lights, a combination of V2V, V2I and automated driving could do away with traffic lights completely."

These vehicles when moving on interstates may be able to travel safely at much, much higher speeds than we currently can. A weekend visit to Welcome, Rainbow Warriors, Horizon, and William Leavitt's as-yet-unnamed 02015 install in Moffat, CO might be a relaxing  vacation with the family, instead of the grueling 18 hour trip it might be today. Pods of connected/automated cars, or an automated Land Art van, may make the trip realizable comfortably in a single day.

I daresay, that in the lifetime of most readers of this entry, EbM will host a day-long bus tour of those four sites, replete with artists/performers on the bus to participate in discussion, lead tours of the sites, and host local art engagements onsite.
A weekend-long trip may include the many local museums participating in RIME by then.