The Future of Humans? — A Discussion through Acrylic Paints

Now, take a breath and let’s step into the artist’s studio together. Let us enter into a dialogue between art and thought, listen to diverse voices, and forge our own.

Artist Tian Mangzi (田芒子) -- Tian

Maxine and Agnes -- MA

Episode 1: The Current Social Order and Universe Exploration Era

Tian Mangzi working in his studio.

Tian: Human wisdom is something that gets stimulated. And wisdom is a force brought out by an era.

MA: No one can completely escape the social construction they live within.

Tian: Yes, so in our era that emphasizes only efficiency and material achievements, humanity’s thinking has also declined. What they pursue, prosperity and superficial glamour, is actually a form of degeneration or secularization. The arts created, thereby, often lack depth, sophistication, and difficulty. Look back at artists from the Renaissance, such as Leonardo da Vinci. He understood anatomy, optics, mathematics, and many other fields. His works contained an enormous amount of knowledge.

Michelangelo, Raphael, and others were the same. Their works incorporated the ideas of famous Greek philosophers, mathematicians, and political thinkers, and reflected the spirit of a great era. They were capable of inspiring people.

But art today can no longer inspire people in the same way.

MA: Do you think this is an inevitable consequence of social development? Has modern art emerged because society has developed in this direction?

Tian: Perhaps it’s the natural law of the rise of one social order and the decline of another.

Nowadays, our order is fundamentally based on scarcity. Perhaps in the future, when the era of robots and AI comes, scarcity disappears, and resources become extremely abundant. I envision that, at that time, the purpose of humankind would be universe exploration. And human creativity can again be elicited.

Only the exploration of the universe can mobilize the productive and creative potential of the entire human race. Otherwise, we may eventually lose our sense of purpose within this current order. Humanity therefore needs a larger goal. When confronted with major challenges, only space exploration can give us something meaningful to pursue. Otherwise, there will eventually be nothing left on Earth capable of stimulating humanity to continue developing, because the expansion of humanity will cause nature itself to shrink.

MA: Like a fish in a tank. It could never envision what’s beyond its tank.

Tian: Human beings are like plants; we need room to grow. If you keep us confined in a small pot, something will eventually go wrong.

So I think humans would inevitably reach the stage of exploring the universe, because that is what will mobilize all of our activities.

MA: But I feel like it seems quite distant. 

Tian: Yes. Only when nations disappear, or national borders become blurred, or when cultures gradually merge, this might happen. We will have to transform new wildernesses and develop new planets.

MA: Wouldn’t that intensify humanity’s intrusion on nature?

Tian: This isn’t an intrusion. It is a form of survival that follows the laws of nature and the universe. The first law of civilization is survival.

I believe humanity’s ultimate mission is to resist fate, establish order, and create things of our own. Otherwise, human existence becomes meaningless. At last, we might create an “artificial universe” (人造宇宙).

Once power reaches a certain level, it needs an outlet. I believe the ultimate way is space exploration. It stimulates human creativity.