"Age of reason future fictions poster" [NMLH.2023.69.2]

Catalogue Number
NMLH.2023.69.2

Object Name
Poster

Title
Age of reason

Date
1972-1982

Description
The Poster Collective was a collective formed in 1971 at the Slade School of Art,  a group formed to initially produce posters in response to the miners strike and on the wars in both Vietnam and Ireland. It was formed on the basis of developing a coherent visual style, which addressed the political issues of the time. This included the armed struggles against colonialism in Africa, the struggle of women for equal rights and the continuing struggle against racism. The collective was active in the 70's and 80's, producing posters on a wide range of issues, including for educational purposes. The group was not-for-profit and used a variety of hand-printing techniques to create their posters. This poster, the second in the series, is printed with a portrait of Réne Descartes. In the lower right corner of the figure is written ‘The gradual break-up of Feudal Society generated visions of apocalyptic disasters such as those shown in the paintings of Bosch. The new philosophers of the Enlightenment attempted to provide a new coherent world view which was no longer based upon religion or mythology but on scientfic thinking. The universe began to be conceived as a vast clock-like machine from which the laws of nature could be deduced. Nature was now viewed as something to be controlled and dominated through the forces of technology. The revolu tion that had taken place in the form of the Gutenberg Press enabled the new forms of knowledge to be widely available to an ever increasing number of literate people. This expansion in literacy also in turn created the basis for the evolution of political democracy. In attempting to define an area in which every thing could be explained in reductionist and mechanical terms Réne Descartes (1596-1650) formulated the conceptual separation of mental and physical aspects of the human being. Par-rallel to this development was also the separation of knowledge and information from values. In this way an area was developed in which everything could be ex plained in a reductionist and mechanistic manner.’