PRODUCTIVE FUTURES: THE POLITICAL ECONOMY OF SCIENCE FICTION

The London Science Fiction Research Community's theme for 2019 was 'Productive Futures: The Political Economy of Science Fiction'. The year's reading list, reading group and events programme discussed how SF can offer rich alternatives to the traditional understanding of everyday economic life and what defines it. 

I felt that the theme lent itself to more humorous and playful treatment to counteract the potential dryness of the phrase 'Political Economy'. This led me to think how non-human beings or aliens would perceive Terrans as interplanetary trading partners, and how our bodies could be a contributing factor to the way we assess goods and their value.  

The call for papers poster was designed as a piece of propaganda in this vein; an earnest and well-intentioned government-issue flyer encouraging  aliens to view their Terran colleagues as benign subjects of interest, and so promote the notion of creating business opportunities with them. 

I wanted the poster to feature illustrations in an attempt to understand how human senses function, with  deliberately clumsy scientific interpretation. My first points of reference were the well-known 1974 - 1980 'Protect and Survive' public information campaign, as well as the 1940s pamphlet 'Holds, Releases, Silent Killings: Manual of Commando & Guerilla Warfare'. When it came to think about the graphics, I looked to the 1981 TV adaptation of 'The Hitchiker's Guide to the Galaxy' and their animated sequences. 

For the final version of the call for papers I printed, folded and re-scanned the poster to recall the textural quality of the material I'd drawn from.