FUTURES.

• Author: Bailey, Ronald
• Position: EXHIBIT

The new "Futures" exhibition in the magnificently refurbished Arts and Industries Building at the Smithsonian Institution is the physical embodiment of a stirring toast from Orpheus in the wonderful modern musical Hadestown: "To the world we dream about, and the one we live in now."

Visitors first encounter the "Futures Past" section, showcasing some of the inventions that have shaped the world we live in now. These include an 1844 Morse-Vail telegraph key believed to be from the first Baltimore-Washington telegraph line, the 1909 Bakelizer which produced the world's first synthetic plastic, Robert Goddard's 1935 A-series rocket, and a full-scale Buckminster Fuller geodesic dome.

Under the building's central dome stands Suchi Reddy's gorgeous two-story me + you, an A.I.-powered interactive installation that sums one-word answers from visitors about how they feel about the future in order to produce a collective verdict. It glowed positive when I was...