Adam Dant’s Map of Shoreditch in the Year 3000

In the year 3000, Shoreditch is all that remains intact among the ruins of human civilisation. Although fortunately none of us are likely to be there to witness it in person, you can click on the map above to scrutinize all the grim details for yourself and discover the primary historical events of the next thousand years too, courtesy of Adam Dant’s dystopian vision created in the year 2000. “But why did only Shoreditch survive?” I asked Adam in horror. “Because it’s subject of the map!” he retorted with good-humoured alacrity, “There is no reason or explanation.”

Casting your eyes upon this disturbing spectacle – like a cavemen peering from the darkness into a glowing shopping mall – be aware that the view is looking South over the remnants of Shoreditch from the Hackney Mountains. On the site of the former Old St roundabout sits the new transport hub enabling passengers to travel upon beams of light through the transformation of micro-particles. On the site of an ancient Shoreditch strip club sits a museum of what used to be – where women go to learn about men, in this world where men have become redundant, ceased to exist and then had to be invented again. Where the Prince’s Drawing School once stood in Charlotte Rd is a collection of British cultural relics including Stonehenge, St Paul’s and Big Ben, in the same manner you might see fragments of lost civilisations at the British Museum today.

Under the spell of the Millennium and inspired by the writings of Jim Dator, Professor of Futurology at the University of Hawaii, Adam Dant asked the residents of Shoreditch about their ideas of the future, and this map was the result. “It’s very loaded. You are asking people to reveal their politics, ideology and world view,” he explained, referring me to the works of Professor Dator, who in his Utopian Coursework proposed the investigation of fictional future worlds on alarming principles such as,“Everyone over or under a certain height could be killed,” qualified by the suggestion, “People under a certain height could be required to wear high heels or tall hats, and people over a certain height could be forced to crouch.”

“People mostly imagined it was going to get worse,” revealed Adam delightedly, speaking of his survey of the residents of Shoreditch,“The future is a nightmare, a de-humanized dream.” When I confessed to Adam that, speaking personally, I still harbour hope for humanity, he put a hand on my shoulder in reassurance. “Paradise is pretty dull,” he informed me with a twinkly smile, revealing his ulterior motive as an artist. Yet, a mere ten years later, history is already eclipsing Adam’s vision of the future. “I was way off with the route of the new highline,” he admitted in gracious acceptance, acknowledging that the new overland train follows a different route from the one he predicted. I take this as a sign that Adam’s map is not the inevitable future for Shoreditch, instead I prefer to see it as the apocalyptic Shoreditch we wish to avoid.

Key to Numbered Sites of Historical Interest on the Map of Shoreditch 3000: 1. Bishops Flood Gate 2. Liverpool Gate Tower 3. Cattle Management Module 4. Great Slab of Cattleism 5. ESP Banks 6. Prismic Departure Point 7. Venicification Towers 8. Understadt Optics Funnel 9. Magnetising Point 10. Atlantunnel 11. Public Dream Management 12. Chinese Style Version Law HQ 13. William Blake & the Mothodists 14. Institute of Planetary Consciousness 15. Sky Pantry Inlet 16. Transport Hub 17. Chris Church real & imagined 18. Movement Co-ordination HQ 19. Drug Simulation HQ 20. Reality Bank 21. Asylum 22. Institute of Coincidence 23. Measure Center 24. Crash Site of Super Sat 1 25. Gene Exchange 26. Large Art Archive (the bongs etc) 27. Carbonised Automata Laboratory 28. Medindustry 29. Major & Minor War Pillars 30. Star Power Research 31. Devout Democratic Monarchy 32. Religious Theme Park 33. Plankton/Plasma Drain 34. Restored Sky Boat 35. Virus Market Site 36. Animal Circus Revue Board 37. Hakny Mountain Viewing Pod 38. Celebrity History Hotel 39. Silica Manipulation Mine 40. Leonard’s Shakspur’s Place 41. Terminus 42. Knob Empire/Superdrain 43. Anti- Gravity Chambers 44. Tubic Pod 45. Honxton Curtalns Morality Crater 46. Sensatiorama Chambers 47. Fug Protection Shield

You may like to take a look at Adam’s Dant’s Map of Shoreditch as New York, or his Map of the History of Shoreditch or his Map of Shoreditch as the Globe. Next time, the Shoreditch You Dream Of. Adam Dant’s current exhibition Bibliotheques & Brothels runs at the Adam Baumgold Gallery, East 66th St, New York City until November 27th, and his forthcoming exhibition Dant on Drink opens at Hales Gallery, 7 Bethnal Green Rd on November 25th and runs until January 8th.