Abstract
Looking at how
cultural policy has analysed, responded to or aimed to influence an
upcoming future, this article describes a notable difference between
what is called past and current futures. The article discusses how
technological development, digitalization, and more recently, AI, is
integrated in different policy visions of the future. This analysis is
based on a selection of documents from (primarily) the 1970s and the
1980s on the one hand, and policy documents from the last five years on
the other hand. While the prospects of the future in the Norwegian
cultural policy documents of the 1970s and 1980s were characterized by a
will to envision a future development and the role of policies as part
of this development, there are much more resigned, directionless and
less confident policy narratives in the cultural policy of the last five
years.
