Through it’s embrace of Auto-Tune, dancehall has concerned itself with the opposite; imbuing new technology with humanity. This in turn is part of a broader cultural trend to re-humanize our notion of the future. Man-child dancehall artists such as Alkaline and Tommy Lee Sparta appeal to the same desire for an infantilized future as ‘Wall-E’. Robot characters in films like ‘Her’ and ‘Big Hero 6’ are far more warm and personable than ostensibly human characters in films like Clockwork Orange and The Matrix. Where Apple used the dystopian visual language of 1984 and Metropolis in their ‘1984’ advertising campaign, Amazon’s Alexa is portrayed in advertising campaigns as belonging in domestic environments as part of the family. Space exploration as depicted in ‘2001: A Space Odyssey’ was a sanitized visual spectacle, whereas films like The Martian and Gravity are person-centered narratives. All of which reflects our increasingly human relationship with technology in the real world, whether that be conversing with Siri on our smart phones or forming human bonds through social media.
i'd add to this that avatar and mumble rap's brand of pastoral futurism are similarly trying to reconcile notions of the future and nature in an age where our dominent cultural narrative surrounding the future is one of environmental collapse
