Where are the innovative futurists?

I just finished reading a few pieces on Microsoft's Craig Mundie and, while I have respect for anyone daring enough to call themselves a seer, I'm disappointed in the "if only we could synthesize reality" scenarios that so many futurists promote.

The fact is, life (which is all about relationships) isn't about realism - literalism - it's about abstraction: how to manipulate the physical world in order to communicate abstract thoughts and feelings among people and across time.

Doh! I just now realized that it's absurd to look to engineers (like Mundie) to define the future - Engineering is about reducing existing ideas to practice - it's the artists that create the visions and the languages that drive the future. Thinking about that, I looked up "futurist" and found that "futurism" was an art movement in the early 1900's (what kind of an education did I get, that missed that?) . So when somebody describes themselves as a "futurist", they are harkening back to an artistic movement dedicated to speed, modernism, violence, and misogyny.