Epilogue Imagining future cities

Author(s):  
Carl Abbott

“Imagining future cities” contrasts the idea of the human city with the robot city, an idea that is never far away from the cities of the future we see in science fiction films. As some of these future visions demonstrate, the ideal city contains elements of both the human and robot city and is powered by big data and technological developments, as well as human connections and recognizable hubs like the bar, bazaar, and branch library. As well as function and commerce, city planners of the future will need to remember the roles of community and interaction in keeping cities alive.

2012 ◽  
Vol 450-451 ◽  
pp. 1074-1077
Author(s):  
Kyung Il Chin

We say that the future city will be an automatic system for human like a science fiction films which means the 'Ubiquitous City or Intelligent City'. Actually, so many science fiction movies contain the wish or demand of human life. Generally, they show the convenience things for human life, the ideal image of future city, the solution technology of human being, and so on. In this world, every built thing is the product of human desire. Meanwhile, the scientific scenes in the movies are also the product of human desire. The reason of the above, this study tries to analogize image of city future by analyzing scene in the science fiction films and human action desire to make the future image. Eventually, this study is going to make 'human life scenario' in the future city which consisted with mixed scientific scene in the science fiction films and sorted by human desire for forecasting the future city. This scenario may apply for forecasting the real future city.


2013 ◽  
Vol 3 (4) ◽  
pp. 12-26 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kristin Miller

This article contemplates the way Northern and Southern California have been used in science fiction films since the 1970s. Continuing a trend the author traces to the 1940s novels Earth Abides and Ape and Essence, Northern California represents possible utopian futures while Southern California represents dystopia. The article includes a photo essay featuring science fiction film stills held up against their filming locations in Los Angeles and the Bay Area.


2008 ◽  
Vol 90 (9) ◽  
pp. 296-298
Author(s):  
Elaine Towell

Once the stuff of science fiction films, the era of robotic surgery is finally upon us and experts predict it is set to revolutionise treatment for patients having surgery. Enthusiastic doctors and engineers have been collaborating since the mid-80s but only now are we seeing the fruit of their labour as cost-effective, safe, minimally invasive robotic surgery finally arrives in our operating theatres.


Author(s):  
Jonathan R. Eller

Chapter 13 opens with commentary on Bradbury’s 1980 Omni magazine article “Beyond Eden,” an essay commissioned to support the projected Space Shuttle program. In this essay, Bradbury defined his Space-Age Trinity—God, humanity, and the machines of interplanetary flight. The chapter goes on to document Bradbury’s April 1980 interviews with friends who had achieved prominence in the new generation of science fiction films: producers Gary Kurtz and Gene Roddenberry, director Irvin Kershner, and special effects artist John Dykstra. Bradbury never completed the article on the future of science fiction films that these interviews were intended to support, but he did articulate a maturing sense of Toynbee’s “challenge and response” as a way to focus the kind of human growth required to reach other worlds.


Author(s):  
Felipe Muanis ◽  
Mariana Schwartz

The elements of cinematographic language can be used in many ways to portray a story. It appears that, over the years, many conventions have been established in different areas of cinematographic making. In this article, we aim to highlight the conventions of the science fiction genre, with a focus on the art direction of movies that portray the future. For this, films such as Ex_Machina (Alex Garland, 2014), Equals (Drake Doremus, 2015) and Blade Runner 2049 (Denis Villeneuve, 2017) are analyzed. Also noteworthy, is the feature film Her (Spike Jonze, 2013) as a work that goes against the others, which presents an approach to the future that stands out among so many other movies with scenarios and costumes similar to each other. As a basis for the research, the study of conventions by sociologist Howard Becker is used, in addition to the work by theorists David Bordwell, Rick Altman, Stephen Neale, Marcel Martin, Vincent Lobrutto, among others. Directors and their artistic departments use colors, shapes, materials, textures, and elements that have become conventions in science fiction films and few are those who dare to produce something aesthetically different.


2020 ◽  
Vol 33 (1) ◽  
pp. 26-46
Author(s):  
Pertti Grönholm ◽  
Kimi Kärki

Artikkelin kirjoittajat tutkivat kolmea tieteiselokuvaa: 2001: Avaruusseikkailu, Pimeä tähti ja Alien – kahdeksas matkustaja, joiden yksi keskeisistä teemoista on älykkään koneen ja ihmisen välinen vuorovaikutus. Kirjoittajat erittelevät elokuvien ihmisten ja koneiden muodostamia suljettuja yhteisöjä, erityisesti keinoälyn ja miehistön suhteita ja dialogia. Kirjoittajat tarkastelevat elokuvia yhtäältä tekijälähtöisesti, keskittyen niiden tulevaisuuskuviin sisältyviin kysymyksiin, varoituksiin ja uhkakuviin sekä toisaalta tarkastelemalla keinoälytematiikkaa suhteessa elokuvien omaan historialliseen kontekstiin.Keinoälytematiikan kautta elokuvantekijät ovat käsitelleet laajoja kysymyksiä, jotka liittyvät ihmisyyden eri puoliin, kuten tiedonjanoon ja uteliaisuuteen, ihmislajin ekspansiivisuuteen, taloudelliseen hyödyn tavoitteluun, väkivaltaisuuteen ja sosiaalisiin valtasuhteisiin. Samalla elokuvat esittävät kysymyksiä koneiden ja ihmisten rajojen hämärtymisestä, toiseuden kokemuksista sekä keinoälyyn liitetyistä pelon, pyhyyden ja kiehtovuuden ja ylevän teemoista.In space, even the machine doesn't hear your scream. The human-AI dialogue in three science fiction films of 1968-1979Grönholm and Kärki research three science fiction films: 2001: A Space Odyssey (Stanley Kubrick, 1968), Dark Star (John Carpenter, 1974), and Alien (Ridley Scott, 1979). They all contain the interaction of the intelligent machine and human as one of their central themes. In particular, the authors analyse the closed communities of the space ships, focusing on the relations and dialogue between the human crew and the Artificial Intelligence (AI). Special emphasis is given to the intentions of the filmmakers – both directors and screenplay writers – and how the questions, warnings and threats about the future were envisioned in each film. On the other hand, the theme of AI itself is also historically contextualized.Furthermore, the authors consider the wider questions these films ask about the nature of humanity: thirst for knowledge, curiosity, expansion of our species, reach for profit, violence, and social hierarchies. Simultaneously, these films also seem to ask questions about the blurring of the boundaries between the human and machine, experiences of otherness, and feelings of fear, sacral, fascination, and sublime that are associated with the AI.


Author(s):  
J.P. Telotte

Before flying saucers, robot monsters, and alien menaces invaded the movies of the 1950s, there was already a significant body of animated science fiction, produced by such studios as Disney, the Fleischers, and Terrytoons. That work has largely been overlooked or forgotten, despite the fact that the same pre-World War II era that produced this group of short films also saw the more prominent development and flourishing of SF as a literary genre. This book surveys that neglected body of work to show how it helped contribute to the burgeoning SF imagination that was manifested in pulp literature, serials, feature films, and even World’s Fairs of the era. It argues that prewar cartoons helped to create a familiarity with the scientific and technological developments that were spurring that SF imagination and build an audience for this new genre. Demonstrating the same modernist spirit as SF literature and feature films, these cartoons adopted many of the genre’s most important motifs (rockets and space travel, robots, alien worlds and their inhabitants, and fantastic inventions and inventors), offered comic visions of the era’s growing fascination with science and technology, and framed that matter in a nonthreatening fashion. Popular animation thereby not only added another dimension to the SF imagination, but also helped prepare postwar audiences to embrace SF’s vision of the future and of inevitable change.


Author(s):  
Dawn E. Holmes

‘Big data and society’ considers how big data is changing the society we live in, through the development of sophisticated robots and their role in the workplace. It discusses smart vehicles, smart homes, and smart cities of the future. The data generated by the world is only going to get bigger. The big data revolution marks a sea-change in the way the world works, and as with all technological developments, individuals, scientists, and governments together have a moral responsibility to ensure its proper use. Big data is power. Its potential for good is enormous. How we prevent its abuse is up to us.


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