How the Future Didn't Happen

They were scandalously well known. They wore white dresses, yellow jackets and hemp sacks with slits for their hands and heads, and sewed black squares on the cuffs of their sleeves. They prayed like members of some new sect, not to oak and beech trees but to factory chimneys. Curious crowds gathered to hear them predict the future of humanity.

Born at the turn of the century they called themselves people of the future – Futurists – and proclaimed the coming reconstruction of the world. At the time they were accused of being charlatans, although, ironically, many of their prophecies did come true – the poet Vladimir Khlebnikov, for example, calculated the October Revolution with striking accuracy. Nevertheless, the Futurists over-estimated their ability to forecast the future. No one, after all, could know everything about all aspects of the twentieth century. One thing, however, did come right for them: they divined this century's guiding idea correctly.