Imaginary Worlds - Bonus: Syd Mead Full Gallery Tour

Episode Date: April 30, 2025

Last week, we heard about a new exhibit in New York called Syd Mead: Future Pastime. The exhibit closes on May 21st, and I know most listeners won't be able to see it in person. So in this bonus episode, you can hear the entire tour I got from Elon Solo and William Corman, who organized the exhibit. You can also see some of the images on the Imaginary Worlds Instagram and Facebook pages. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

From early morning workouts that need a boost, to late night drives that need vibes, a good playlist can help you make the most out of your everyday. And when it comes to everyday spending, you can count on the PC Insider's World Elite MasterCard to help you earn the most PC optimum points everywhere you shop. With the best playlists, you never miss a good song. With this card, you never miss out on getting the most points on everyday purchases. The PC Insider's World's Elite MasterCard, the card for living unlimited.

Conditions apply to all benefits. Visit pcfinancial.ca for details. You're listening to a bonus episode of Imaginary Worlds. Last week, we heard about a new exhibit in New York called Sid Mead Future Pastime. I imagine for some listeners, it might feel a little frustrating to hear about an exhibit that they can't see because it's thousands of miles away and it closes on May 21st.

So for this bonus episode, I'm going to play the entire tour that I got from Elon Solo and William Corman who organized the exhibit. You can see some of the images on the Imaginary World's Instagram and Facebook pages. So for your virtual tour, imagine you've taken the subway to the neighborhood of Chelsea on the west side of Manhattan. It's a beautiful spring day. You walk onto the High Line, the elevated park on a former train line. You pass by a bunch of art galleries with big glass doors until you finally see up on

the left, the Sid Meade exhibit. What inspired you to want to mount this exhibit? Well, I knew Sid going back all the way back to 2013. And the most immediate reason is very simply I started working with his husband and with his estate immediately after he passed away. I started looking for interesting legacy projects to kind of, you know, kick off after he had passed. And it wasn't until there was a mounting of an exhibit at the Laguna College of Art and Design in the middle of COVID that I finally, for the first time after knowing Sid and Roger for over a decade, actually was able to see the works up close. And the moment you see them up close,

and in this case, it was in this small college gallery down in Orange County, they just demand being seen in person. And also, it was one of the ideas that you wanted him on this exhibit to sort of dispel the idea that he's just the Blade Runner guy there for a meeting, like dystopia. There's definitely an element of that.

I think it's a blessing of an entry point in so far as the sheer number of people who have seen Blade Runner and adore Blade Runner. I would say more specifically, there is an element of ensuring people understand the complete chronology of his career and very specifically where films enter into his career, which is more than 20 years into a career already well

established as like a profoundly impactful industrial futurist and designer. So Sid was, or people don't really understand here, is that Sid was 45 years old when Robert Wise called him for the first time and asked him to hop on board to build out the Veger entity in Star Trek, the motion picture, 45 years old. And so this man already had this, you know, remarkable legacy as a titan of industrial design, automotive design, and then more generally, this optimistic futurism. All right, so let's get started. Let's take a look. What is what is this? What are we looking at? So we're looking at the running of the 200th Kentucky Derby, which is actually

commissioned by the Kentucky Derby organization in 1975 on the occasion of its 100th anniversary. So what we find typically with Sid and so far as his works is we like to joke that the name played above the door is the future of. So people would go to Sid and ask them, oh, can we please see the future of X? And in this case, what they asked him to do is show the future to come of a Kentucky Derby that had not yet been realized. One of the more profound things that most people realize right away is that there is a full screen cellular phone device, a video device in the hands of one of the more prominent subjects immediately in the

foreground. We also notice, and usually tends to be one of the first things people notice, is the word internet on a floating communications platform over the track. As it happens, the word internet had only been coined in 1974, making this, we believe, to be the very first artwork in which the word actually appears. Yeah, let me see this. So yeah, this guy's got a device that looks absolutely like a modern screen thing that you'd be holding. Although the outfits, it's funny, they do look very 70s sci-fi in a lovely way, in a very cool way.

The ship though looks pretty much timeless. Everything else looks timelessly futuristic, I would say. I think one of the big things to start the show off with this work is there's a particular grounding. When we talk about Sid's futures, they're not these totally far-fetched, absurdist visions. know, visions. It always feels like the present stretched gracefully forward.

And you know, what you're capturing here is, you know, whether or not you've been to a horse race, there's a familiarity to it. There's a nostalgia for this time and this moment. And then of course, you know, the moments that shoot you into the future. These, you know, hot air balloons of beautiful geometric or spherical shapes and sizes for the VIPs, the anti-gravitational scoreboard, the ships, some of the outfits, but all in all it still feels familiar. Yeah, and it's also just as stunningly beautiful. Like the colors are just like, I mean, that was the thing about Sid's Futures

where it's always like, I want to go there. There's one thing that is particularly clear immediately for people who come to the exhibit, especially a lot of people who come in with Blade Runner in their mind, once they realize there's not a dystopia to be found in this entire exhibit. A lot of people are asking, why is he keep on showing events that people are going to

and the name of the exhibition is not without, is not by accident pastime because this is his prediction or hope or bet insofar as what the future should be, which is a future that is enjoyed with others. Very very simply, a lot of people are asking, why are there so many images of races and going out for the day? And I go, this is literally Sid saying, there are certain things about us that aren't gonna change, that are very, very simple,

like spending quality time with each other and going to a great event on a beautiful Sunday. Yeah, you're saying that a lot of these are the future of, the future of the Kentucky U-Dur, but you could do the future of anything that exists now as a regular thing. Yeah. It's a very powerful.

There's so many futurists out there that are making wild bets and wild predictions. And I think Sid was someone who was very deeply a humanist and a person who enjoyed enjoyment. He enjoyed leisure. He enjoyed company. He enjoyed a good drink as the sun set over Capistrano. So for him to imbue within all of his artworks,

a great day with your friends or a great day with the community watching some marvelous feat of athleticism, which has been essential to human culture since time immemorial, I think he kind of bet that a lot of things wouldn't change, which is why there's so much of the works that we're seeing in the world today. which has been essential to human culture since time immemorial, I think he kind of bet that a lot of things wouldn't change, which is why there's so much of the works

that reek of nostalgia, a very, very odd nostalgia. These are future settings, but they feel so deeply familiar. There's so many people even coming in being like, oh, this feels so almost like imperial and Roman, like ancient, just imbued with a future technology. Because I think there was something very deep he was trying to like, and Roman, like ancient, just imbued with a future technology. Because I think there was something very deep he was trying to like, you know,

point out about the futures he was hoping to show. Opening night, I mean, several people came up to me asking if I was the artist. And they asked this, not because of what I looked like, but I think because the works, they feel so fresh. And something that we talk about with Sid's futures is they are capital F future. They can kind of live, you know, timelessly.

And here we'll make our way to the next work, because this is the earliest work in the show from 1969 titled The Monopod. And, you know, I give that brief leading up to this, because this is the one work in the show that feels tinted by the decade. And you see the kind of hippie-dippy swirly paisley patterned pants, the tights, the bell bottoms, the boots, even the colors kind of coming in. And this is a moment in Sid's career where we kind of see him kind of finding himself in this futurism, the monopod being a mobility suit. Think about the future of these enormous malls or office spaces or airports getting from one side

to the other might take an hour and so you need this vehicle inside to get you there quickly. It looks like the back of like an insect if you have like a beetle or or a ladybug but it's made out of you know some kind of steel device with these two round things in the back. That could look like eyes to some degree, but it's also very cute and friendly looking. And does it make... And there's like a bubble, which is very 60s on the other side, like a transparent bubble and a wheel too. So are people supposed to be riding these things or flying them? Riding these things. You see... Oh, I see them. Yeah, they're riding them. God, they do look like bugs in a weird way.

Yeah. And something with this work, the story I like to tell is when Ridley Scott had asked Sid to design Deckard's car, what Sid cannot do is make something in isolation. He needs to work within the environment. And so that first painting Sid did, you begin to see the architecture, the guts of the city spilling out, the colors, the people, how they dress, the signage. It all needs to make sense in this world. And so when looking here, you begin to notice one of the fun architectural moments. The doorways are the same exact shape as the monopods, so people can easily kind of fit in and fit out. But you'll just see that throughout all of Sid's work

that it all makes sense. All of those elements feel together to make this scene, to make this world. And the one item I'd say there's a bit of prescience for today is he's basically predicting that we're each gonna be in kind of our own little bubbles as we take our technology with us. Yeah.

I like to joke that we have monopods today, they're just metaphoric and not literal. And then only when people need to interact with others, do they emerge from their pods and actually start interacting with each other. Yeah, everyone is literally in their own bubble here. But one thing, literally in their own bubble, but one thing that's also really marvelous,

because one thing we see a lot, and again, we had a marvelous conversation with a tech culture writer who's writing a book about the future of industry, the future of city planning. He asked the question, what do we think Sid's predictions for the future would be? And we respond, well, Sid was not in the business of predicting the future or rolling the dice. He believed in rehearsing for the exact future that should be and planning for it with great exactitude, that we should be aiming our arrows toward a very specifically desired outcome. So one thing we see here that's very, very indicative of all the works is a world that is massive, that has megastructure and mega-civilization. It's supposed to be a testament to

our aspiration. So in the case, one of the main purpose points of the monopod is there's vast distances between spaces. So we see all the monopodlings here on their way to whatever next great space or event they need to go to with this general idea of, well, you might have to go a little bit of a distance because the buildings are so big and so spectacular. Another race.

Oh my God, wait, these look exactly like the cycles in Tron. Oh, fun, fun, fun. So Tron 82,, these look exactly like the cycles in Tron. Oh fun fun fun So Tron 82 Sid does the Tron light cycles He inspired the director of Akira Atomo on Akira's motorcycle and Atomo's come out and said this this work that was in 85 Akira. This work is from 2004 Okay, it was for Honda. It's called Monster Bike, but this was Sid's 2004. It was for Honda, it's called Monster Bike, but this was Sid's response to the Akira motorcycle, the Akira motorcycle. But this is specifically for Honda and you know, front and center Honda Red, that Honda logo, we're in a futuristic Daytona, you know, all the

elements feel very grounded and possible even though the bikes are, you know, 19 feet long. Then you have these few moments where we're kind of jut into the future, this futuristic skyscraper in the back left corner, piercing the skyline. And just one thing to note on that, which we find to be a pretty marvelous thing is that the person at first might think, oh, they're just looking at specific separate scenarios.

But in fact, once we become more familiar with each work and go through it, it seems that actually Sid is just painting different vantages into one unified world in which he's designed. I was actually gonna say that because I see that these balloons, these sort of balloon things, one of them looks like Cloud City, you know, that they're floating. They're in the last image too.

And the scoreboard is sort of similarly like, in this case, not floating, but it's a similar kind of futuristic scoreboard design. But then the stadium looks classic. The all new, all electric Can-Am Pulse motorcycle is your cheat code for the city. Light, agile, and stylish for all you smart commuters. Find your pulse today.

Learn more at canammotorcycles.com. By the way, is everything, did he ever do personal artwork that was not commissioned? So half of the work in this exhibit falls under that category. Oh, okay. It's a very funny thing. There's how Sid's, what Sid did.

There's how Sid spoke about it. There's the version he said to whomever he was speaking to. And then there's the actual picture of his activity and what we can kind of derive from it. This was a fine arts trained person who really never had any notion of entering his professional career as a fine artist. He actually had a great amount of disdain for the fine arts world.

He felt that his life should be imbued with purpose. His dream was running a studio. His dream was running his own business, which is what he did. But what we ultimately find is that by the time the 1970s roll around, he's crafted scenarios in which he's empowered to create original works for opportunities, or people are now coming to him merely commissioning him to create visions of something.

And then in the midst of all this, he's just creating work on his own. So in his own way, he was able to kind of insulate and create his own actual fine art career, but on his own terms in a very almost like silent and private way. So we're very happy to point out to most people that about half of the show are fully just independently created works, either just for himself personally or on the occasion of an exhibition of his work. He was very proud. When invited to show his work or speak, he would oftentimes create an original work just for that occasion to make sure that the attendees would be able to experience something unique just for that show. All right, this actually looks like,

I did an episode about these, what they're called the O'Neill cylinders in space that you see them in movies like Interstellar, where it looks like a giant wheel, but actually because of gravity, you always look like you're on the bottom and they have this beautiful curve curvature to them. This is exactly that.

This is the space wheel. 1979 commissioned by National Geographic asking Sid to envision what civilization looks like in space. And this is a 10,000 person space wheel. And right at the front, you know, I love to talk about how, you know, Sid is always ahead of the curve on technological advancements, scientific literature. He creates this hydroponic agricultural system for the community. And then you kind of look out and it's this just gorgeous utopian landscape where all the homes are facing inward towards the bodies of water.

There's this gorgeous amphitheater in the back right corner. Yeah, I gotta say, his colors remind me of like, it's not, you know, fake utopia, technicolor, but it feels like when it's a beautiful day out, you know, in May or June or September or October, maybe not even October, but you know, it's like a beautiful day, everything's in season,

all the trees are blooming, and you're just like, wow, isn't it beautiful today? It's like those colors. It's not fake. It doesn't feel fake. It just feels like, oh, this is like, you know, a beautiful day in like, you know, mid-May kind of thing. For sure. I mean, what you'll start to see is the colors will change

depending on the, you know, I like to say that there is this beautiful stylistic through line, aesthetically speaking, throughout the entire works here. But each of these works can live on their own as these unique worlds. Many people are coming here either calling out Interstellar or they call out the Neil Blomkamp film Elysium. They go, oh, that looks just like the space wheel in Elysium. I was actually going to mention that one too, yeah. And we go, yes, Neil Blomkamp built Elysium off of this image.

Really? Yes, and was kind enough to go to Sid and ask him at first for permission to use this as inspiration. That's the beginning of the conversation. And by the end of the conversation, Neil has hired Sid to do about 60% of the designs for the film.

So it's actually funny to say that, oh, this is the image for Elysium and many people will discover the main difference is that there's kind of an open atmospheric system in the space wheel in the film as opposed to this which is enclosed. But that actually, no, this is not the actual reference because Sid designed a brand new one for the film. And again, they're both technically dystopic in the film because you have the rich people up in space and then the poor people on the ground, but Sid designed a brand new one for the film. And again, they're both technically dystopic in the film because you have the rich people up in space and then the poor people on the ground, but Sid designed both.

This is the one that Roger talked about. This is the giant robot. The writing of the six, how are you pronouncing it? Dergs, but it's D-R-G-X-X. This work is done in 1983. It was for the Tokyo Sports Fair. He created three works for the Tokyo Sports Fair of 83. This one tells the story of being on a plane looking through an airplane magazine

and noticing these gorgeous greyhounds in motion and the musculature on them. And he thought, all right, I'm going to do a dog race. Except these dogs are mechanized, they're 20 stories tall, and they rip through the dirt of what I was mentioning as this sort of Roman Colosseum futuristic space. Yeah, these are almost like kaiju size robot dogs. Exactly. And you know, Sid, when thinking about, when we talk about the future of, as Alana was saying, it's, you know, what does the future of entertainment look like? And Sid says all the more immersive, all the more grand. And when we think through immersive elements, you notice the crowd,

they're kind of on these oddly shaped bleachers. And then you'll look closely and you'll see people are holding these what look like remote controls, but they're betting wands. And the thing I love to note is in 1993, this is very odd, but today it's very commonplace for if you're at a concert, everyone has their phones out and they're photographing the scene. There's about five phones right at the front of this painting all taking photographs of the dog race.

Yeah, they look exactly like you would today except the bottom is kind of black. So maybe they look like almost a transitional kind of iPod, iPhone, but again, not even 20, 30 years earlier. Pretty surreal. This looks like the, not quite the Death Star. It looks like the moon has been kind of colonized with highways and a round belt, you know,

so it kind of has a Death Star-y look, but I still think it's supposed to be the moon, right? It is in fact the moon. And again, there's a lot of creative dialogue imbued in a lot of the works here. This is Moon 2000 from 1979. This is just a purely original work. The backstory on this is before he...

Oh, by the way, I should say also it's like it's the kind of moon that you see in a blue sky like just before sunset where you're like, oh look, I can see the moon, but you're only, but it's a half moon or a three-quarter moon. Sid moved to California to go to Art Center and except for a couple years in Detroit working for Ford and then a lot of travel to Europe and to Japan. He was residing in California for the rest of his days. He moved down to San Juan Capistrano for an extended period of time. Over a number of days he would be, and he was beach side, and he would, when the sun was rising, go out and see the moon as you can on the Pacific and the California coast area and see the beautiful moon there. And he just starts imagining, or almost like, almost as if the mirage starts thinking he's seeing some type of civilization or settlements on the moon. We don't have the particular

insights on this, but it does in fact for many people seem to be in a way a response to the Death Star because his explanation is that this is an agrarian colony on the moon for the purpose of the earth being able to regreen itself. I was going to say this looked like it looked like farmland. This belt around the moon for the purpose of the earth being able to regreen itself. I was going to say this looked like it looked like farmland. This belt around the moon looks like farmland. The moon has, I mean, in a weird way, I joke with people that in weird ways the moon has been reupholstered. So they've merely preserved the crust and in fact completely colonized the entirety of the moon and hollowed it out as Sid says specifically for the purpose of growing all of our food stuff so the earth can have a break

and regrow. Oh my god. So my joke and this is a little too corny I don't think Sid would ever say this but my joke is that if that's the Death Star this is the Life Star. I was literally going to say that. Sorry. No no no no I'm not like you stole my thunder I was about like we're on the same page about this yeah it's the life star. I love it. Okay, so these are three images of a variety of cars going from the seventies to the twenties to God knows what century these are. I think this is actually a very, very futuristic California

with some really cool flying pods as well. So this is, we're very proud to include one of the rare multi-panel works, this is a triptych, called Pebble Beach that was made specifically for the 2000 Pebble Beach Concourse to Elegance. For those unfamiliar, it's one of the more preeminent automotive shows on the West Coast, or in the United States every year.

And as you rightfully point out, it's, as I like to say, tales of an automotive future past. So what we see is a group of futuristic party goers amidst an automotive exhibit of the future in which all of the cars of our future are now of the past. So this is of a pebble beach, deep, deep, deep, deep, deep in the future. So even some of these futuristic cars here

are actually in their past as much as this 1970s, arch of these 20s cars are. And then also it should be important to point out, Sid's cars too. So this is his Oldsmobile. The other day someone from Art Center came by, an older gentleman, older graduate, and he was saying, I saw Sid pull up to school in this car with that license plate, Obligon. So this is Sid's love story of the history of transportation. Well, speaking of love, I do want to bring up this. You brought up when we spoke earlier

about queer futurism, and I think that's such an interesting idea. And I'm starting to see it in some of these, you know, these men who are very, very scantily clad and super muscular and with clothes draped, although there's semi-nude women as well. Well, I mean, just to go off what Roger was saying, that the futurism, to say that it was a question of queer futurism, we have a queer artist who was showcasing what he truly believed the future would become, would be a world

of individual freedom and understanding who was showcasing what he truly believed the future would become would be a world of individual freedom and understanding that people could be who they want to be and showcase themselves and their bodies however, however they want. And that also the world would be, you know, in a certain, like we said, there's, there's lots of hearkening backs to Greco-Roman culture, a world of celebration of sense and sensation and of the body. So we see that through and throughout. One thing that is very, very powerful for someone like Sid Mead, who one would think there's a lot of discourse around queer futurism.

And then once you really start digging into it, you start realizing there isn't quite a gravity center to this discourse quite yet. In speaking with a lot of scholars, a lot of them are pointing out that the gay community was spending way too much time fighting for today to worry about tomorrow. Yeah, because during the age crisis, there are not a lot of gay artists who were doing these kind of utopian, beautiful futurisms.

There's a lot of fight for today. Knowing that Sid was, for all intents and purposes, living openly as a gay man in accordance with the dictates of the time. And so, but in terms of the public finding out he was gay, the public did not know he was gay until his obituaries ran. Really? Yes. But that's also that doesn't, that's not to say he was, he was hiding anything. I don't, I don't think that there would be a lot of journalism coming to an industrial futurist

or designer asking him about his personal life. Right I would really more argue if you read most of the text on him going back over the years, there's no real kind of grounds to be like, hey. That makes sense. I think what's interesting to me too is that, a lot of what he does is what would be called like hard sci-fi, and there's a lot of like cars and ships and not many guns, but robots and stuff

that like traditionally stereotypically straight guys would be into. And I think it's interesting that that's probably what a lot of people never occurred to them, that, you know, he was seeing this future for a queer lens. One of the things I love to call out with this work, you know, figures aside, the actual mood, the setting of this feels so sensuous. And Sid loves the Japanese director Akira Kurosawa. And he said, Akira Kurosawa,

he captured sunsets better than anyone. And so this is one of Kurosawa's moments here, how the sun has flooded the scene and lights the bodies in such a magnimonious way. Well, it's funny because I mean, having lived in California for a long time, I recognize and lights the bodies in such a magnimonious way. Well, it's funny because I mean, having lived in California for a long time, I recognize these colors so well. It's like those moments in a California sunset where you're like, God, this place is gorgeous.

These sort of like, you know, God, I don't even know what to say. There's sort of an orangey, purpley kind of color that's just, you know, kind of yellow, stunning. It's very profound that you called that out so quickly. And also profound that because so many artists painting in a classical medium or sense tend not to be from the West Coast. So a lot of these colors, like I am a native Californian,

and it's not really caught or represented in a lot of artwork. The sheer amount of oranges and blues and purples that happen in the sky on a regular magenta, neon pinks that happen on a regular basis as part of living in California. So it's very profound that you just caught that right off that. Spring is here and you can now get almost anything you need delivered with Uber Eats. What do we mean by almost? You can't get a well groomed lawn delivered, but you can get chicken parmesan delivered. Sunshine? No. Some wine? Yes. What is this looks like a bunch of people hanging out in Superman's Fortress of Solitude? So this work is a voice in the city from 1985 painted specifically for a Japanese one man exhibit.

So one thing that we find, I mean there's a few elements we just find like most profound about it. Firstly, it's just the clear shock of this orange red, it seems like power source of the vessel that they're on to which it leads to our second item which is that they're journeying, they're on a form, they're on, in some sense, a throne craft. There's a lot of pilgrimage in his works. The thing that's most powerful about the piece is actually what they're looking at off screen.

Almost impressionistic megastructure, but they're on their way towards some great place that only we can tell from the looks on their faces. Yeah, and there's again that kind of Greco-Roman sort of, you know, a lot of nudes in here. Some nudes, some not, you know, just kind of, it's your choice. It is very kind of Greco-Roman futuristic,

which I do associate with a lot of, you know, again, not to make it dated, but it is a very 80s futurism with a kind of sensuous Greco-Roman futurism. And one thing that's really important to kind of point out in so far as we've for a long time fought this before we were fully up to speed on all the titles of the works.

We thought this was a static, we thought it was showing a static scene in some type of throne or mount. But then once we realized that they were journeying somewhere and start looking more closely into the characters, it's important to point out that the most prominent figure on this throne viewing platform appears to be a priest or appears to be someone in vestments. It doesn't appear to be a king or a prince.

And one thing that has kind of almost become, it's tertiary, but still an important element in so far as exploring a world, the world of Sidney that was far more expressed in the works themselves than he would talk about them. He was very plain spoken about his background, but all the elements are there. Is that religion and spirituality played obviously more than a huge part of his upbringing. His father was a Baptist minister. His entire world was religion all the way until he was about 13. That's where he starts backing away from it. We literally just found out he was banned from watching movies until he was 13. So the only two major influences in his life were the church and the visual

materials, his and in the sermons and the visual materials his father would share. And then Flash Gordon and Buck Rogers, which his dad would buy at the comic stand and then read with him at night. Did he see this futurism that he dreamed about as coming from his father's preachings? Or was it like an antidote in a quiet rebellion from the world that his father preached about? You know, as Alon and I kind of dig into Sid's childhood,

there's so many moments of us feeling like it was going against so much that he grew up with. But at the end of the day, and I'll let Alon get into that, at the end of the day, I just think that there was something inside this boy, this prophetic urge to really dream big. And he has just this enormous sense of positivity, always that outlook from a young, young, young age. And I think it's just one of those things you're born with or you're not. Yeah, he does seem to have this disposition

that was like very positive looking, very practical, get down to work and plain spoken that seems to be extremely consistent. You could watch a video of him talking in the early 80s or 30 years later and he looks, I mean, he doesn't look exactly the same but he sounds the same, same guy. Oh, it's very much the same guy.

What we do see with Sid no matter what is a great sense of hallowed space. There is a sense of holiness that kind of pervades through like he paints sacred, many sacred spaces. And there's another work in here that we specifically included because it just seemed religious. It seemed like some sacred cavern or church, some big massive infinity space. And there's no backstory to this one. We really don't that this is one of the few works that we'll see Silver Coach in a few minutes that's just hallowed. And that's one thing that we really got a sense of that is, you know, he seemed to be very practical, a

very practical, very kind person. It's very, we're very lucky to be dealing with someone, someone who the moment you open the door, the moment you put the email address up on the website, the moment you start reaching out to people because you'd like to see if they want to come for a talk back or provide a quote. And the chorus just doesn't stop of the people who absolutely love this person. The Sid Mead family is one of the greatest. And I'm not just saying the members

of the Mead family and Roger, I'm saying this massive community of people he influenced and touched over his years. So it definitely does pervade through this in a very gentle but profound way. Yeah. This looks more like another planet in a way because everything is red on the ground,

including the plants and everything. And then everything in the background, it's green in kind of a slightly unnatural way. And of course, one of his signature, extremely shiny chrome vehicles with, again, very scantily clad Greco-Roman futuristic people. It's funny, this is a very common thing too you see in Roman things where there's, it's like a giant, it looks like a giant staff.

It's a what? It's a what? Standard. Again, I need to make another movie reference. It's that staff that Indiana Jones uses to find the Well of the Souls. But you see them with Roman legions and, you know, they look like they're like 25 feet high. One thing that's really clear in this regard, which he never really talked much about,

is that it's very clear that this future is imperial in some type of way. It bears the mark of some great empire. I mean, the one thing that kind of comes up, we had a person in the gallery the other day asking specifically, what are things that Sid did in his works that he predicted for today?

And then I rushed people over to, this is called Hypervan Crimson Plaza. So the Hypervan is automotive design that he started working on in the late 1970s, early 1980s. And as we've said before, there's almost a consistent cast of characters and vehicles and buildings and technology throughout his works. He's kind of portraying a window into a single world. This car very specifically is a car of the automated and artificial intelligence age.

It's a drone car. Yeah, it's a car that has no windshield. It's for people. It's a personal transport, but it doesn't have a steering wheel. It's an extension of your own personal space. There are sensors and cameras on the outside. The inside is meant to have screens if you want, but it's obviously anticipating what industrialists and futurists have known for about 30 or 40 years and only now everybody else is waking up to, which is that if our future is automated, it means so many of the things we're manually responsible for now are just going to naturally 40 years and only now everybody else is waking up to, which is that if our future is automated, it means so many of the things we're manually responsible for now

are just gonna naturally become extensions over on personal and private spaces. Yeah, it's like if Johnny Ives, who designed the iPhone in the future, designed a Waymo that looks so sleek and chrome and gorgeous and streamlined. You mentioned Imperial, that it's true, a lot of these feel like you're in some futuristic empire.

Did he see that as positive, negative, or neutral or inevitable? Or what were his feelings about this futuristic empire he was often painting? I mean, again, he didn't say much about it, so I think it was more about the look and the feel of Grandeur. There was nothing really negative. It was very important for him to not portray negative things.

This is a person who was born squarely in the middle of the depression. By the time he was six, World War Two started. By the time he was eight, the United States entered World War Two. By the time he's in high school, we have the revelation of the Holocaust. We have the bomb and we have the Cold War. He was very, very mindful of the realities of the world around him and how important it was to be building toward a desired future that is not only what we should be working towards realistically or prophetically, but also be fighting against the absolute devastation

that he and his generation witnessed kind of growing up. So in regards to something like that, like I said, there's very little, if anything, insofar as how he talked about this imperial future, if in anything more than a look. The way that I like kind of joke with people is that his world is a world as if the Roman Empire never collapsed.

So all of the technological legacy has just grown over the course of 2000 years. And our world of today is this world of beautiful and abundant mega civilization and hopefully a quality too, because that's kind of a key hallmark that I think was a little different than the Roman Empire. Just a little, yeah.

Oh, by the way, and so that was that a personal artwork? Yes, that's just a personal artwork. And is this one too? This looks way more now. I do feel like this looks very alien. These again, we're with these kinds of scantily clad, super muscular characters again, that looks like they're flying on these organic beasts

to some degree. This is getting more and more far future. I mean, this is the most fantastical work in the exhibition. And I think important to note, there's beings of all shapes and sizes and colors and just taking on so many different forms. This work is titled Cavalcade to the Crimson Castle. This group of people moving in unison.

There's a sense of togetherness going back to sensuousness, the naked bodies hanging out in what looks like on the bottom left corner, this floating conversation pit. I think there's more than conversation going on in that pit. Yeah. And then there's these giant wheels, too, that are moving. That's really cool.

People are inside a moving wheel. Yeah, definitely some new transportation that we're seeing in this work here. All empty gravitational, or I guess the wheel could be turning, but I'm seeing another one flying or levitating above, and they're going somewhere beyond. We can't see that place. The red sky. It's interesting, these colors are getting redder. This piece was, this is one of the works that, like I said, he would paint an original work on the

occasion of an invitation to exhibit his work. He was invited by the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in San Francisco in 1996 to do a one man show. The show was entitled Bright Red Mysteries and was on display there. And this was the original work that he did in effect for the city of San Francisco in 1996. And that's actually for that specific purpose. Obviously at initial glance, a lot of people would kind of cast this into the realm of fantasy. I tend to think it actually is more of like the drippy, it's far more influenced by like the drippy surrealism of someone like Salvador Dali than it is necessarily a conventional fantasy piece.

But the moment that we understood the context that this was in effect, a gift to San Francisco. And if you understand the context of what the city and specifically the gay community was going through at that time, it suddenly takes on a far, far greater resonance. We have a massive community on a pilgrimage, on a journey to some Elysian pathway in the distance. And I like to point out that this just as much could be a statement to a community, reminding them of their own resilience and survival,

as much as it could be a portrayal of those they'd lost at the time on their way toward Elysium. Wow. Yeah. This is another one of those pods. This one's got the giant, God, it's got a gigantic wheel and then a little window on the side that's really cool. And then these are, these look like Imperial guards with, this is getting more and more futuristic and these giant towering ships or cities.

I'm actually beginning to see more Blade Runner in this too, yeah. So this is Silver Coach from 1983. 1983, we're again in one of those situations, those spaces that's a bit disorienting. Someone had mentioned, are we in the pyramids? But it feels like we're in this cavernous, futuristic pavilion, that same sort

of fractal-ing of that supersonic Baroque architecture that Sid so loved. What do you mean by Baroque? Because I see that these are, they almost look like they're buildings but they're super, super narrow and super, super high with not a lot of room between them and just kind of like a hazy sunlight coming through. One element in so far is there's kind of two words they use a lot, supersonic Baroque and steel couture. Yeah, could you guys describe what Baroque is? Because I don't really, I vaguely remember hearing it,

seeing definitions of it in school. So, I mean, Baroque in, I mean, generally speaking is referring to a very specific period in, you know, Western European history and design insofar as how this applies here with a bit of kind of like postmodern intermixing of other elements. He was a very big fan of colliding cultural elements from different civilizations. So in the case of a lot of the patterning we see, the key element when you bring up Baroque is big, broad, gilded and detailed and very specifically patterning within the gilding.

And so he uses a kind of cross stitch of Chinese lacquer patterns. And so we have these marvelous kind of patterned designs, almost in like a relief capacity throughout the designs themselves. And we see that throughout here. And that and also takes in his specific realm also takes on a kind of a beautiful fractal pattern, too.

This is looks like a giant feast slash party. Again, some are kinds of characters we've seen before with a city in the background. Oh, then there's up there to a nightclub. This is also extremely sensuous too. Even the food that they're eating looks sensuous. It's dark, it's lustful. It feels like we're in Sao Paulo or Rio de Janeiro on the coastline. You kind of catch a glimpse of the city there, but you look around this party and Alana mentioned, Sid loved steel couture. And you see these biomechanized arms. By couture, you mean like steel, like fashion,

like hot, like aqua-tour. High-end fashion design. And we see these metallic robes, these headpieces, these helmets. But then there's this kind of humanity to it. You're seeing, my mother's Italian, and I took her through. And I remember showing her this work.

And she pointed out the Little mozzarella balls and the tomatoes and the olives the hors d'oeuvres kind of being served but one thing you won't notice here are drinks and What does everyone else have in their hand are these rings these metallic rings? Sid would call them high low rings they were sensory enhancers, a futuristic party drug of sorts, but for you to get higher and lower in unison. You don't have a bad hangover off of these. Sid kind of, you know, shooed away drinking in the future, at least

in this particular world. This is a futuristic rave. Exactly. But one that there's a calmness to it, a particular sensuousness that I think raves lose out on. Yeah, that's true. A rave where you're in control of the vibe that you're having. I mean, there's something that I think that Sid would agree,

that I think also Will and I agree with, is that the introduction of the iPhone has kind of really hurt what used to be the party. And I think this is kind of a harkening back. This is from the 70s, obviously, when to show up at a party where there's nothing, there's no distraction or escape in your pocket, you need to wear your absolute best and be ready to arrive and make the appearance and do your thing. This painting's from the 70s? This is from 1977.

Oh, is this a personal artwork too? Yes, this is a personal artwork. And a series of, there's three major party artworks he made. This has the best example of Steele Couture with this lovely figure in the front that just pops out with this amazing, what do you? It's all this bio-mechanized arm, but it's beautifully ornate.

One thing that was pointed out to us only in a tour over the past few days is that there is somebody filming attendees and then projecting them working the high low rings onto a screen that one of the attendees is like sitting atop. Oh, that's right. Yeah, they're sitting on top, this sort of roundish, you know, kind of platform. But yeah, they're actually being projected simultaneously onto it. Full visibility of the party from wherever you are. And there's a particular immersiveness in that. So now we're a little bit more near future

with super sleek chrome cars. This is the futuristic car that I would dream about driving in when I was a kid in the 80s. It's so damn sexy. But I love to juxtapose the fashion senses from the previous work, which is Steel Couture, where we are far into the future there. There's something that's a bit more familiar here but everyone's in this gothic punk outfits. No

steel, no metal. Well also no also too nobody's you know there's not a lot of nudity in this. Everybody is there's no nudity everybody's wearing layers and layers and layers in a way that actually looks very kind of cool. Yeah and I see this scene as like a four or five a.m. after party on the Hollywood Hills. The cars have just pulled in. People are hanging out chatting, drinking. And this is a work that was commissioned by Raise Wheels, the Japanese wheel company. And this entire scene was for wheel company. And this entire scene was for these two wheel caps. This is the new wheel cap that they had just come out with. The previous version is just behind it. You know, what Sid's just able to do is build the perfect world for said thing. It's not just floating in space. Everything makes sense to him around it.

The last work in the show, entering Stargate 1991, we kind of saw as the perfect departure. You have these four intergalactic travelers traveling on what I thought were ships. Sid liked to call them cosmic whales. And you'll see these beautiful full energy pulses kind of going through them. And they're traveling towards this, you know, either blue planet through this warm hole, but into something greater ahead. We're lucky enough to have found a bit of writing he did on

this that was just under from the archive just two weeks ago. And so here we go. He says attracted by the docking beam energy curious space orcas nuzzle two privateers waiting for landing instructions. Several hundred kilometers dead ahead, a gigantic asteroid luxury liner also floats in line, its antimatter drive cavity glowing in soft blue. In the distance is Stargate, intergalactic terminal itself a complete world with a miniature proton star at its center. The travelers in the foreground privateer sit out on the open airlock surrounded by the atmosphere extension of Stargate between the docking slides that extend 400 kilometers from

the Wharf Ring. Once landed they will refresh their memories of Vista, mingle with the inhabitants of this distant world and once again feel the solid pull of full gravity. Then their journey will resume. They will join other craft waiting for the Proton Star's acceleration beam to fling them toward their ultimate destination. Well you know they introduced Starwales into Star Wars recently. Yeah well that's a that's a very powerful the good thing is there was a very good relationship between there was kind of a triangle between ILM Lucasfilm Imagineering at Disney and Sid. He was good friends with a lot of people in all these communities. There are not many Sid Meade artworks in private possession.

We're happy to report that one Sid Meade work is in personal possession of George Lucas who commissioned Sid to paint a Sith home world for the Star Wars Visions book came out I I think, for 16 years ago. And if you go through piece by piece by piece, as a lot of the attendees kind of come in, they keep on being like, oh, that was in Star Wars. We go, yeah, it's probably. There's a lot of happy, healthy, you know,

homages and pulling. And one thing I'd like to point out there is a, for any Andor fans listening to this podcast. If they go to the episode in the antique shop and watch Mon Mothma's entry into the antique shop, it's a full recreation of one of Sid's US Steel artworks done as an homage to Sid and only those deep Sid Meade fans that know that image will see it there. So if you look through and through and through a lot of Star Wars, the homages are replete. Thanks for listening to this bonus episode.

Now that you're done with the gallery tour and you're still in New York, I hope you go and get a slice of pizza.