Link to Original Paper: History of UCSD. The Guardian, 1999
This image above was taken from an excerpt of the May 27th 1999 edition of The Guardian UCSD. While reading this addition of the UCSD’s journal, I learned a lot about the current political and economical climate that was surrounding UCSD and Southern California in general. The Guardian is the most known of the UCSD student newspapers and is one that is known even to those who are not enrolled at UCSD.
While the paper was incredibly informing, the part that really captured my attention was the image attached. On the left part of the image it shows the UCSD Library Walk from 1999 in comparison to that of the right which shows the UCSD Library Walk in 2020. What looks to be the Geisel Library is no more and has been replaced with a Rollercoaster, Hotel and Casino!
The paper itself was a historical source, I learned a bit about what was happening in the world. I wish I could go in a time capsule sometimes and see what was going on back then. I was born in May 1999 and while I can’t remember anything, I really wish I could. The world was so much different, even just 25 years ago.
Everything has changed, and I feel that everyone sees it as such. The image itself shares a lot about what the future looked like for many. Whether that be positive, or negative, was in the eye of the beholder. We all have high hopes for the future, and even this image shares that sentiment too. Whether you view rollercoasters and hotels as positive –or negative– really relies on your own intuition and view. To me, I took it as a satirical point of view, one that is more focused on how negative things could be due to the youth of that time. But, I can’t quite grasp why that would be the case.
If we think about it from a different lens, we see something completely different. In example with movies like “Back to the Future” and others set to time travel to the early to late 2010s show a huge discrepancy to what actually happens. It’s interesting to showcase and describe what might be found as a “good” or “bad” future. There are many questions I have for the author/artist, but I doubt I’ll get many answers.