20/20? ‘Visions’

By Botond Farago

Edited by Lizzie Alblas

This post is written by a member of The Letters Page team, who would like to recommend to fans of our work another journal which you may enjoy reading.

Letters are visions into the past. Something the world seems to have moved beyond, replacing them with instant communication that has at once pulled us all closer together but pushed us further apart as well. Looking fondly back at the past is a global human past-time, I know I am guilty of it, but the opposite side of the coin is looking forward – something that can be just as important and cathartic.  

I remember the moment I learned that flip-phones were a result of Star Trek. It was revelatory; it was one of those key realisations that showed me just how influential writing and creativity can be on the world. I hold the firm belief that all creatives, at their core, have a sense of ‘I want to change the world’ about them. That’s certainly the way with me at least, so I’m naturally drawn to works that do their best to spark the next flip-phone moment.  

This is where Visions comes in: a journal where old and new talent alike come together and paint vivid images of a world that could be, in contrast to the one that was and still is. Science-fiction is a genre deeply rooted in advisory concepts and cautionary tales, almost like fables and legends but with more self-lacing Nike’s and lightsabers. Visions‘ pages (whether in their graphic designs or the writing itself) draw a provocative set of futuristic landscapes that anyone can reflect on and enjoy, while still pushing the boundaries of what we think the world might look like in the near and far future.  

I recommend Visions to anyone who can get their hands on it. I’m not a gambling man but I’d be willing to bet it all that in ten, twenty, fifty years from now there will be another blog post by another writer whose flip-phone moment was hidden between their pages. 

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