Visionary Histories

History of the Future

History of the Future is a film series examining gripping cinematic visions of the future emanating from different moments in recent history.

Yellow cover with delicate white circles nested in each other to look like a tunnel with the words Visionary Histories David J. Staley

Visionary Histories

When someone says they want to know the future of something, what they are really saying is they want to know what the state or behavior—especially the emergent behaviors—of some complex adaptive system is going to be at point n in the future. Visionary Histories makes the case for the disciplined study of the future via the historical method, that historians are methodologically well-positioned to anticipate the possible future behaviors of a wide variety of  complex systems.  

History of the Future: Demolition Man

Buy Tickets This summer, FilmBar and Arizona State University’s Center for Science and the Imagination are going back to the future. This second installment of The History of the Future

History of the Future: They Live

Buy Tickets This summer, FilmBar and Arizona State University’s Center for Science and the Imagination are going back to the future. This second installment of The History of the Future

History of the Future: Logan’s Run

Buy Tickets This summer, FilmBar and Arizona State University’s Center for Science and the Imagination are going back to the future. This second installment of The History of the Future

Equilibrium movie poster, depicting Christian Bale and Taye Diggs dressed all in black, looking stern and holding handguns.

History of the Future Film: Equilibrium

This summer we’re proud to present a film series examining gripping cinematic visions of the future emanating from different moments in recent history. Join us at FilmBar in Downtown Phoenix

Poster for The Lawnmower Man, depicting a man pushing a lawnmower in the foreground, and a man suspended in a cybernetic brace inside of a huge eyeball floating in the sky.

History of the Future Film: The Lawnmower Man

This summer we’re proud to present a film series examining gripping cinematic visions of the future emanating from different moments in recent history. Join us at FilmBar in Downtown Phoenix

Poster for the film Outland, featuring Sean Connery in a spacesuit and a futuristic city in the background.

History of the Future Film: Outland

This summer we’re proud to present a film series examining gripping cinematic visions of the future emanating from different moments in recent history. Join us at FilmBar in Downtown Phoenix

Poster for the film Westworld, depicting a robotic Western gunslinger.

History of the Future Film: Westworld

This summer we’re proud to present a film series examining gripping cinematic visions of the future emanating from different moments in recent history. Join us at FilmBar in Downtown Phoenix