page_title: Dystopia
section_title: Society
hierarchical_section_title: Dystopia / Society
caption_attribution_description: Polski: Wyjście ludzi z&#160;miast&#160;to jedna z&#160;ostatnich prac Zbigniewa Libery, nawiązująca formą do batalistycznych panoram. Artysta snuje futurystyczną wizję, opierając się na literackim motywie martwych metropolii: ludzie opuszczają dziczejące, pozbawione prądu i&#160;bieżącej wody miasta, wyruszając w&#160;poszukiwaniu lepszego miejsca do życia. Praca ta nawiązuje do wcześniejszych cykli Libery&#160;Pozytywy&#160;i&#160;Mistrzowie, koncentrujących się na analizie fotografii prasowej i&#160;jej możliwości kształtowania zbiorowej pamięci – a&#160;także kanonów historii sztuki.English: 'People Leaving the Cities' is one of the latest works of Zbigniew Libera. The photographs are stylised as painterly panoramas and present the artist's futuristic vision of a dying metropolis. People are abandoning the cities which no longer provide them with electricity or running water, looking for a friendlier place to live. The work relates to Libera's earlier series of photographs - the Masters and Positives series and the question of shaping collective memory.
context_page_description: A dystopia is a community or society that is undesirable or frightening. It is an antonym of utopia, a term that was coined by Sir Thomas More and figures as the title of his best known work, published in 1516, which created a blueprint for an ideal society with minimal crime, violence and poverty.
  Dystopias are often characterized by dehumanization, tyrannical governments, environmental disaster, or other characteristics associated with a cataclysmic decline in society. Dystopian societies appear in many fictional works and artistic representations, particularly in stories set in the future. Some of the most famous examples are Aldous Huxley's Brave New World, George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four, and Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451. Dystopian societies appear in many sub-genres of fiction and are often used to draw attention to society, environment, politics, economics, religion, psychology, ethics, science or technology. Some authors use the term to refer to existing societies, many of which are, or have been, totalitarian states or societies in an advanced state of collapse.
context_section_description: Dystopias typically reflect contemporary sociopolitical realities and extrapolate worst-case scenarios as warnings for necessary social change or caution. Dystopian fictions invariably reflect the concerns and fears of their creators' contemporaneous culture. Due to this, they can be considered a subject of social studies.
  In a 1967 study, Frank Kermode suggests that the failure of religious prophecies led to a shift in how society apprehends this ancient mode. Christopher Schmidt notes that, while the world goes to waste for future generations, people distract themselves from disaster by passively watching it as entertainment.
  In the 2010s, there was a surge of popular dystopian young adult literature and blockbuster films. Some have commented on this trend, saying that "it is easier to imagine the end of the world than it is to imagine the end of capitalism". Cultural theorist and critic Mark Fisher identified the phrase as encompassing the theory of capitalist realism ‐ the percieved "widespread sense that not only is capitalism the only viable political and economic system, but also that it is now impossible even to imagine a coherent alternative to it" - and used the above quote as the title to the opening chapter of his book, Capitalist Realism: Is There No Alternative?. In the book, he also refers to dystopian film such as Children of Men (originally a novel by P. D. James) to illustrate what he describes as the "slow cancellation of the future". Theo James, an actor in Divergent, explains that "young people in particular have such a fascination with this kind of story [...] It's becoming part of the consciousness. You grow up in a world where it's part of the conversation all the time – the statistics of our planet warming up. The environment is changing. The weather is different. There are things that are very visceral and very obvious, and they make you question the future and how we will survive. It's so much a part of everyday life that young people inevitably – consciously or not – are questioning their futures and how the Earth will be. I certainly do. I wonder what kind of world my children's kids will live in."
caption: People Leaving the Cities, photo art by Zbigniew Libera, imagines a dystopian future in which people have to leave dying metropolises
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