In these turbulent times, it’s often difficult to focus on the future. For those of us who are content or complacent, the present holds a much greater interest than even the next month. However, in the industries of technology, economy, biology, etc., the future is of utmost concern.
For that reason, the New York Times created its Future Issue, focusing on issues, dilemmas, and topics that concern the future and how we can affect it. In doing so, journalist Ryan Bradley secured first-person testimonials from many taste-makers and influential individuals in their respective fields… including our very own Skrillex.
The future is an accident. It’s an accident because you explore. You have to go through with a machete and just hack away and find it. You can’t see it — you just have to go somewhere you haven’t been before. It’s not even about being so far into the future; it’s “How do you say what people want to hear next?” I’m always listening to what the younger kids are doing. The most inspiring stuff is what you find young kids doing online. It’s so raw. It’s, like, the singularity, the way children are interfacing with different technologies so seamlessly. I was in South Africa and went to this township, and the kids there had really cheap smartphones, and they could still build a window into another world, then adapt that to their culture. Some kids had D.J. gear in a little shack, and they were making this hack between house and African, like African house. Kids! Like, 8 years old. That’s where I’m getting ideas.
It’s important to keep one foot in the past, one foot in the present, and your eyes on the future. In Skrillex’s case, he seems to have about eight different appendages. But any way you slice it, Skrillex sets the trends for a year as naturally as a bee searches for pollen.
To read the rest of the eye-opening testimonials, visit the NY Times here.