Salvador Dalí

“What the Country Will Look Like in 1987. By That Time, Says M. Dali, All the Trees and Flowers Will Have Disappeared and Man Will GrowStrange Forms in Their Place Made Out of Chemicals and Artificial Materials.”.

What the countryside will look like in 1987 was used to illustrate Salvador Dalí’s vision of the future in The American Weekly.

“Armchairs and other articles of furniture will be made to fit the round rooms and also to fit the curves of the body. A warm arm of artificial flesh will grow out of one side of the chair as shown in the drawing. It will keep the occupant of the chair from growing lonely. M. Dali thinks. Instead of a head, the almost human-looking chair will have a lamp to cast light reflections on the ceiling. M. Dali “What more could a person living in 1987 desire from a piece of furniture?”

A whole new mythology will grow up in M. Dali’s “rounded building civilization.” Each of the stories will have a pointed moral such as the story of the girl and the “hairy trombone.” This particular story will be told to children to warn them against the madness of the jazz worshipers of this present-day generation. A young girl, so goes M. Dali’s story, is attracted by the sound of a trombone, like the sailors of old who were lured to their death by sirens and mermaids. She falls in love with the musical instrument and gives it life, so that it becomes like a Frankenstein monster. But the creature turns against its creator and devours the girl. M. Dali thinks that the people of today worship false gods which will, in turn, consume our present civilization.

To illustrate this more clearly he has drawn a typical countryside of 1987 as he sees it in his subconscious mind. By that time man will have eaten all the living things of the forest and field and will grow strange forms in their place made of chemicals and artificial materials. These odd growths will devour all mankind, thus bringing about an end to the race.

In fifty years the things which are called “inanimate” or lifeless will be given a semi-human life. The curtains hung between the rooms of apartments and houses will be covered with human hair which will shake with fear or quiver with anger or caress with happiness, according to the fate which lies just beyond in the next room. The curtains are divided by zippers because M. Dali thinks they personify the high point of mechanical civilization.

The whole picture of life in 1987 is part of M. Dali’s theory that all life should be made to seem like a crazy dream. He thinks his dream will come true in about fifty years. By that time, he says, Americans will be tired of the “horror of the straight line” and everything will be curved like the inside of the digestive tract. Man will live in round buildings in order to get back to the peace and security of the pre-natal state. They will find themselves, he says, in a new Middle Ages which will be made comfortable by technical progress. Magic and sorcery will grip the people and terrible new myths, like the story of the girl and the “hairy trombone,” will grow up.” (“America 50 Years From Now”, op. cit.)