These pictures, originally in the form of postcards and paper cards enclosed in cigar boxes were made by Jean-Marc Côté and other artists in France in 1899, 1900, 1901 and 1910. They depicted the world as it was imagined to be like in the year 2000. The first series of these pictures were produced for the 1900 World Exhibition in Paris and there are at least 87 of them.
The imagination is constrained by the reality of their present. People in 1899 just imagined more complicated and automated versions of what they already had.
Still very interesting to see a weirdly retro-futuristic, parallel version of our age.
N.
