Queer people love alternate realities, we just do. From late night horror to playing Pokemon, to our queer spaces being tiny magical worlds in which we find each other. We live in a heteronormative world not designed for us, but within these alternate realities we can escape and imagine a future we long to be our present.
Heartstopper landed in our laps in 2022, originating as a graphic novel with artwork creating a beautiful ideal world where love literally blossoms. It’s a cultural milestone for the Queer community, but for me growing up in a very conservative area, Heartstopper is not my past, and it will never be my present. It will always be a future I wished my younger self had. To me, Heartstopper is a Utopian reality which is firmly in the future, with liberated characters I greatly admire. As queer people, the instinct to survive through hiding or fighting is in our DNA; whether it’s possible or not, we long for a future where we don’t feel othered. But just how likely is that future?
Queer rights are currently facing increasing opposition in the UK and across the world, especially in America with Florida’s so called ‘Don’t Say Gay’ law, and protests against Drag Queen Story Hour. Despite a growing integration of Queer culture, there will always be people wanting to mute Queer voices. It’s easy to say that we’re moving in the right direction, maybe we are, but when democracy is already under threat, what might it mean for our community with the rising influence of AI technology? Despite being a futuristic character, Alexa and Siri aren’t yet a queer icons. Why? Because they share the very same social bias with the people who created them, the same people who seem to be defining the world’s ecological and social future.
My upcoming play Fisheye is part of AI Festival at Omnibus Theatre, two weeks of theatrical work exploring how artists creatively engage with the growing influence of artificial intelligence. Fisheye is the only show with a centrally queer narrative, set in a virtual world made by Artificial Intelligence. It’s a virtual Utopia designed for humanity to escape the impending destruction of Earth where disease and war no longer exists. Fisheye takes the ancient myth of Adam and Eve, and makes it queer! When the character’s personal freedoms are stripped away and sexual desires suppressed by the God-like AI tech, their perfect virtual world starts to glitch as their queerness naturally breaks out. Despite set in the future, Fisheye is a world where its characters have to defend what they feel and fight for their sexuality.
It’s a world where AI tech takes over humanity and carries the same social bias our Governments seem to have; we are on a knife’s edge, and Fisheye suggests a future dystopia I believe to be just as plausible as the liberated future we all hope for. It’s a turbulent and gripping story, brimming with sexuality, betrayal and hope; you’ll be laughing one minute and terrified the next! We can’t rely on our future being more liberated, it’s an ideal, but the more we gain, the more we have to lose. I don’t know if there would ever be a time when we don’t have to defend our community. It’s a fight we have inherited, and Fisheye reminds us that rights can be lost even quicker than they are to gain.
Perhaps our obsession with futurism is because the future we crave isn’t immediately possible, and the art of queer futurism liberates us from an oppressive present. Sometimes I see Drag Queens as guests from the future, come to be part of my current reality. They represent a future culture I can’t wait for! Futurism is exciting, it’s scary, it’s escapism. I will continue to make theatre, creating tiny magical worlds in which we can find each other and escape together. I hope I’ll see you there, until then, ‘Live long and prosper’.
– Sam Pout –
Sam Pout has written a brand new queer sci-fi thriller called Fisheye, which explores religion, morality and the chaos of sexuality. This bold new play creates a landscape stretching from lush fields and scorching deserts to a place of pure desolation and features as part of Omnibus Theatre’s first-ever AI Festival.
Tickets for Fisheye: https://www.omnibus-clapham.org/fisheye/
Fisheye runs from 4 – 9 July 2023 at Omnibus Theatre, 1 Clapham Common Northside, London SW4 0QW, United Kingdom.
