Life after 1945 seemed to promise both utopia and catastrophe, due to the invention of nuclear weapons. A state of political conflict, military tension, proxy wars, and economic competition between the Communist World and the Western World, arrived in 1945 and carried on until 1991.
Artists such as Walter Womacka responded to this dual vision, searching for ways to build a new and hopeful future and deal with the anxieties of the present.
An example of Walter Womacka's work
This idea of a utopian society brought about the argument of of utopia v. dystopia. Is our society today a utopian or dystopian society?
Utopia - An imagined place or state of things in which everything is perfect.
Dystopia - An imagined place or state in which everything is unpleasant or bad.
I believe that society today, has factors of both, and it would be extremely difficult to definitively label our society one or the other. We are a utopian society, because we have the freedom of free speech, we live in a respected country, and we have some great architecture and monuments. However, when you look at the definition of dystopia, you could list many things about our society that are 'unpleasant or bad', these include: the war that is still continuing, even after 10 years; the amount of poverty in the UK; the amount of homelessness; the rate of unemployment; the recession that is happening. There are more, but these just give a good view, of why our society could be labelled as dystopia.
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