“Status report, Commander.”
“All systems steady, Captain. Trajectory locked.”
“Engage.”

In the early 1950s, space travel lived in our imagination. Before Sputnik, before rockets pierced the atmosphere, the future was depicted on the covers of Astounding Science Fiction and Planet Stories—magazines popular with young readers who dreamed of interstellar voyages. Captains gripped glowing orbs, pilots navigated by dials and lenses, and every page promised a future just out of reach.

Back to the Future draws on that vision. A trip to uncharted galaxies begins here. This sculpture, housed in a late-1940s radio body, contrasts the warmth of wood and brass with the stark glow of an electrostatic ball and a crown of pink spheres, as if waiting for a captain’s hand to launch it past the edge of space, time, and imagination.

The design of Back to the Future was shaped by the understanding that every imagined future carries the fingerprints of the era in which it was conceived. Mid-century science fiction offered countless examples—spaceships echoing the curves of 1950s automobiles, control panels modeled after radio consoles, and interiors furnished like modernist living rooms. Even Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey, though set in a distant future, was unmistakably shaped by the clean lines and muted palettes of the late 1960s. Leaning into this idea, the artist built a vessel that feels ready for interstellar flight yet remains grounded in the warmth and materials of the 1940s.