BCM 112

Continuing on from my last live tweeting summary, I have tried to be consistent with my tweets relating them to future media and lecture readings. I have also continued to share content by peers which I believed to be core to future media studies and which have appealed to myself personally. Part two of my live tweeting summary blog will incorporate my tweets on some of the most prolific sci-fi films in film history such as ‘The Matrix’ and ‘Blade Runner’. A movie which I personally enjoyed tweeting about was Ready Player One. A visually appealing movie which predicts a future that we are working towards. A society which uses virtual reality to cover their own imperfections as seen in popular customisation games such as GTA and Skyrim.

BLADE RUNNER

A film set in a dystopian society which is corrupted with both environmental and economic issues. As the world continues to battle with global warming and pollution, the movie creates subtle prediction for the future of our society. In the first scene, K arrives at his destination to detain a rogue replicant. The setting describes a desert with no crops and no civilisation in sight. 

“One thing I’d say is that if anything the future will be more remarkable than any of us can imagine, because although any of us can only apply so much imagination, there’ll be thousands or millions of people using their imaginations to create new capabilities with these future technology powers.” – Ray Kurzweil.

Blade Runner emphasises Kurzweil’s theory where he discusses the potential of our future with the continuing innovation of technology.  Denis Villeneuve directs the movie predicting a variety of technological advancements in an imagined sense. The film provides no limit on the futures potential for outrageous innovations which we can only imagine currently in our modern day society.

The films highlight K’s transformation from being a slave replicant hunter to a humanised android who battles between doing his job and covering the fact that his kind, bioengineered human androids, are able to reproduce. If humans were to uncover this, there would be war.  

When K finds Rick Deckard, they battle until they tire. This battle ends while a simulation of Elvis Presley’s concert plays in the background. This scene works to potentially predict a life where we can simulate our favourite concerts in front of our own eyes and in the presence of our living room.  Once the battle has ended, K and Deckard enjoy a beverage together. 

A post which was personally intriguing was Lorena’s post on the idea of using three dominant colours to set moods and scenes. Each colour described their own scene and thus allows the audience to feel emotionally connected through colour.

The movie also emphasised music as a way of portraying a scene. In the scene pictured below, the music is very dramatic whilst also being quite soothing. Sets a perfect mood for the scene as K and his android partner embark on their journey whilst the rain pours down around them.

THE MATRIX

As a film touted as one of the best sci-fi films of our generation and a film which has catalysed the sci-fi genre’s popularity, the film delves into the possibility that there is an alternate dimension behind our normal life.  

“As we are still lacking a “theory of everything”, we cannot rule out the possibility that novel physical phenomena, not allowed for in current physical theories, may be utilised to transcend those constraints” – Nick Bostrom

The film, ‘The Matrix’, shows that with this ever-changing world we live in, anything is possible. As Bostrom states, “without a theory of everything”, we cannot tell at what degree the world will transcend beyond our current capacity.

The film started the use of ‘bullet time’ technology which slows camera shots down to intensify and amplify a fight scene. This camera techniques is used in most sci-fi films and poses the question as to what kind of camera shots will be used in the future of film in a technological world which is ever-changing.  

The film boast plenty of cultural and biblical references. Such referneces inlclude the reference to Simulacra and Simulation by Jean Baudrillard and the allusion of morpheus as a god.

Simulacra and Simulation by Jean Baudrillard, is referenced at the start of the film as Neo picks up the book by his doorway. The book is also referenced when Morpheus shows Neo the “desert of the real”. The film explores theories from famous philosophers and because of the emphasis placed on such theories, the Wachowski brothers made all lead actors read books including Simulacra and Simulation by Jean Baudrillard, Out of Control by Kevin Kelly, and Introducing Evolutionary Psychology by Dylan Evans.

The biblical referencing of Morpheus refers to his gold like figure. The Wachowski Brothers based Morpheus on such readings about the god Morpheus. This is seen through Morpheus’ role in the film to awaken people from their dream states to reality. In Greek mythology, Morpheus is labelled the god of dreams, highlighting the comparison.

ALITA: BATTLE ANGEL

‘Alita: Battle Angel’ tells a story of a washed-up android who is found by a doctor by the name of doctor Dyson. Alita is built from scratch and as she spends more time with humans, discovers her hidden battle attributes.

“A Cyborg is a cybernetic organism, a hybrid of machine and organism, a creature of social reality as well as a creature of fiction”. – Donna J. Haraway

With social interaction, Alita journeys on a coming of age transformation where she begins as a quiet and confused cyborg, changing into a confident and social cyborg. However, mentioned it above, it is important to note that she will always be a “hybrid”. Alita transforms with social reality while also being well aware of her cybernetic tendencies.

Much like ‘The Matrix’, ‘Alita: Battle Angel’ started the revolution of “motion capture technology”. This is where movement of characters are digitally recorded and thus giving computer animators the power to make non-human characters more life-like. Films such as the ‘Polar Express’ used this technology, however, for an animation film. ‘Alita: Battle Angel’ used this piece of technology for an animated character in a movie with real-life characters. This concept was then applied with ‘Avatar’ and the character ‘Neytiri’, thus paving the way for more movies to adapt this technique.

Much like films we have screened so far such as Space Odyssey with H.A.L and Westworld with ‘gunslinger’, Alita becomes more humane as the film goes on. However, this comes at a cost as Doctor Dyson decides the limit Alita of her true capacity and restrict her from venturing out into the city. This is where the audience must decide as to whether Dr Dyson is restricting her from her true potential or he is protecting her from the dangers of the outside world.

Whilst showcasing popular themes such as humanising of androids and replacing loss with a new form of robotics, ‘Alita: Battle Angel’ also raises a common concern for people around the world, the inability to fit in because of difference. Alita is obviously different and this means she is targeted by those who are jealous and hungry for power.

READY PLAYER ONE

‘Ready Player One’ portrays an environment which is post modern yet keeps in touch with the current concept of cyberspace. An environment which is imaginatively limitless and has endless potential.

As mentioned in my opening paragraph at the top of this blog, ‘Ready Player One’ is my favourite screening to date. Whilst it faced negative feedback from its critics (mainly due to the book before it), the film shows a scarily accurate depiction of what the world is coming to.

Giving the ability for people to neglect their surroundings and focus on their in-game character offers a dangerous result. When protagonist Wade Watts finds the first key to a potential company-winning prize, he is targeted by a corporation lead by evil character Sorrento who is hell bent on winning the overall award. Through customisation, it can be seen that Sorrento develops a large and intimidating character who has perks of his own. Wade creates a character which isn’t powerful or special in any shape or form, however, he wins the keys based on his own wit and intelligence.

The film overall predicts a dangerous future where if you are succeeding in the virtual world, people who are more powerful in real-life will hunt you down.

In this tweet I shared by Josephine, it discusses my points mentioned above. Cyberspace acts as “the place between”, however, actions in this cybernetic world can hurt your real-life form.

The film presents plenty of pop-culture references, appealing to the overall film and game lover. Spielberg uses a digital re-creation from the film, ‘The Shining’, as seen in the tweet below. Wade’s in-game partner, “Aech”, is clearly scared of horror films as he then finds himself in the Overlook Hotel where the Shining is based.

BACK TO FASHION – LIA KIM

My first BETA video I will looking at is Lia Kim’s fashion and lifestyle project. From my knowledge, Kim’s initial idea was to post weekly vlogs and base her videos on the culture of journalling and surveillance.

Adopting a project on fashion links significantly well with the future media subject and the screenings watched so far.

Lia sourced inspiration from the ‘Ghost in a Shell’ screening where she liked the aesthetic of clothing worn by characters. Not only did she source inspiration from films such as ‘Ghost in a Shell’, however, this made her have another look at previous films and identify whether there were any other fashion option she could talk about. I thought this was a great way of providing a future studies correlation to her fashion based vlogs. I could also identify that Lia had used her public utility well. Using twitter as a feedback loop allows her to gain insight from her audience and even peers from the subject.

I proposed two articles on the future of fashion and in specifics, the future of sustainable fashion. This concept is the first thing that came to mind when I thought of the future of fashion and something which is so important with the current environmental climate. The first article was an article written by Amanda Cotler and published by Forbes. It incorporates a summary of sustainable fashion with a future of fashion and what people can do to make sure sustainable fashion is something which is present in the future. Along with this article I added an education scholar article by Thomas Radclyffe called “Designing a sustainable future through fashion education”. This article adds another form of background research and gives evidence to how important fashion education is in providing a sustainable future.

In concluding Lia’s project, I want to emphasise her outstanding knowledge of fashion and the future media study. Her project seems to be well thought out with a clear plan in place and clear view of the future of her project.

ROBOT AND MEDICINE – JORDAN ARLENGHI

The idea behind Jordan’s project was to develop a 3D a robot/machine to carry out medical procedures. The project would look fifty years into the future which works well with the screenings so far as they too predict the long term future.

I admired Jordan’s idea for this project as it works towards benefiting the future of medical health care. Seeking workers for health care has been on the decrease, therefore, it is vital that we look at what the future will mean for health care and whether developing robots to operate medical procedures is the next step.

My advice for Jordan would be to read up on lecture readings and clearly plan out his project plan. There are plenty of recourses which Jordan can use from the cyborg lecture as well as the cyberspace lecture. Planning out his project will help with the development of his robot.

To help Jordan I linked an article which I found to be insightful into developing robots for medical care. At the beginning it emphasises how useful these robots will be once coded and developed in a way which will benefit caring for injury, sickness etc.

Furthermore, I located an article linked in week nine’s lecture notes by Clyne and Kline called ‘Cyborgs and Space’. I though this article would be insightful towards future media studies. As well it linked with Jordan’s topic of developing robots and developing them for a whole new environment.

I enjoyed reading Jordan’s blog and watching his DA Beta. I learnt a lot about robots and he presents an interesting project which I haven’t seen from anyone else.

FASHION FEVER – GRACE MARY BOULATOUF

Similarly to Kim, Grace is adopting a fashion project where she will look at how large fashion companies and institutions are poor for the environment and thus the future.

Grace is using YouTube as her platform to distribute three short videos. The first will be a summary. Much like Grace, I also made my first blog/episode a summary. This allows her audience to read up on her concept, topic and idea going further with her project. The second episode will be all about SHIEN.

‘SHIEN’ is known for having a threatening and damaging impact on the world. Grace will look at why the brand is one of the worst fashion brands to date. In researching SHIEN and trying to understand what the current issues were with SHIEN, I came across article which provided an extensive research into why SHIEN is problematic and what needs to be done. This is something which I though that Grace could utilise for more background research.

The next article I sourced for Grace’s benefit was an article on how we as fashion consumers can keep fashion environmentally sustainable. It emphasises the importance of keeping fashion environmentally sustainable especially with the current climate as the world is suffering from the continuing issues such as pollution.

The last episode in Grace’s project will focus on fast fashion’s production. In particular she will look at the next 10 years of fast fashion and how it may develop and change.

Overall I like how Grace narrowed her focus down to a niche as well as the background research which she has done shows that she has a well thought out plan for this project.

Personally, live tweeting during the screening has been a fluctuating experience. There have been tough periods where I have struggled to come up with anything useful and there have been other times where I feel like I have thoroughly grasped the content.  

All movies screened so far have been intriguing. I have tried to analyse film techniques used throughout and connect these techniques with the study of future media. Techniques which have stood out to me have been the use of music, colour and lighting. These techniques were so valuable to any science fiction film to set scenes and convey messages, especially without the use of today’s technology.  

The first screening was ‘Metropolis’. A film, directed by Fritz Lang, based on the Weimer era in Germany where the country was in political and economic turmoil. The protagonist, Freder, shares a conflicting relationship with his father whilst finding hope for a better society in the form of his love interest and the mediator, Maria. 

Inadvertently Maria is a character which undergoes significant change. A scientist by the name, Rotwang, makes a robot version of Maria which works to create an uprising of workers against the city. In a scene which shows wealthy men stimulated towards the new ‘robot maria’, an influential figure is created. 

 

A common theme shown throughout the four films watched to date is the fact that all films have acted as catalysts for the science fiction genre. Both Metropolis and Space Odyssey shared a connection with Star Wars.  

As pictured above the sketch of C3PO was influenced by Metropolis as well as the stagnant camera shots used in Star Wars of the spaceships slowly moving, were clearly drawn from the Space Odyssey. 

‘2001: A Space Odyssey’ is a film produced by Stanley Kubrick about a space voyage gone wrong when an AI becomes overpowered and tries to manipulate Dr David Bowman. The film is known for its incredibly accurate prediction of space flight and the potential ability for AIs to takeover humanity. 

For background research on the movie, I found a website which showed how accurate the predictions made in the film came to be in today’s world. Before watching screenings, I made sure I researched the films beforehand. This already gave me an upper hand when pre-generating tweets and even creating tweets on the spot. 

Even though tweeted for satire, I found it interesting to think of what deliveries would look like in the future. Watching this film gave myself a right to think about what the future of our generation could be.  

A successful tweet of mine which had pretty good engagement was the tweet pictured above. In arguably the best of scene of the film, Dave finds himself going insane. Kubrick’s use of colour joined together with creepy music emphasises the dramatic and confusing nature of the scene. A scene which has acted as a catalyst in today’s films such as Interstellar as Mathew Mcconnaughey goes insane towards the end of the film. 

On a similar note, the movie ‘Westworld’ attempts to portray the same connotations as Space Odyssey. The film takes place at a theme park which is made for the wealthy. However, whilst the protagonists start to take advantage of the park, the androids start to rebel against the coding initially developed for them.  

From punching bag to the terminator, Gunslinger rebells against the normal coding at the theme park and hunts down both the two protagonists. A sign for the future, much like ‘H.A.L’ in Space Odyssey and the ‘Puppet Master’ in ghost in a shell.

Behind the scenes of the Theme park there are workers who make sure everything runs smooth. This division between workers and the wealthy easily compare with the same division between the factory workers and the wealthy in Metropolis. 

As well as this, I connected the workers to the game creators in the hunger games (also received a comment from a BCM peer about the resemblance with the Truman Show), emphasing the influence of the film on movies in today’s society.  

Starring Harrison Ford, the film ‘Blade Runner’ stays the with a consistent theme of humans against machines. ‘Blade Runners’ are humans who are payed to hunt ‘replicants’ or androids. The replicants start to gain human-like qualities, much like both the Space Odyssey and Westworld. 

The achievement of human like qualities is an example of a prediction made by Ridley Scott and the prehistory of the future. Once gaining these qualities, robots or androids rebel against norms and thus reverting back to the prehistory of the future, bring upon negative qualities.

An interesting aspect of the Blade Runner film is the techniques used to make the film. Ridley Scott made miniatures of the pyramids to bring them to life. A crazy idea which turned to gold as the movie became a sci-fi classic, however, is not normally used in the modern day as visual effects are approached with digital editing.  

‘Ghost in a Shell’ is an amine movie which has influence the way in which we watch sci-fi movies today. It follows a security agent, “Motoko”, who hunts an allusive hacker named the “Puppet Master”. A film which challenges self identity in a futuristic setting.

As mentioned above, “Ghost in a shell” has influence many movies in our modern day society. In particular, the Wachowski’s (creators of the matrix) sited this movie as inspiration towards the Matrix. It’s quite easy to see as both films home in on the question of what is real and what is virtual.

Finally, an interesting tweet which I had to retweet about a prediction made in A Ghost in a shell, which as come to fruition. Our modern day society is overwhelmed which the high concentration of social media and ads. This also acts as divination as it warns us as the audience of an imagined future with negative outcomes, shown through the rust on the advertisements.

As a sports fan it has become a reoccurring theme to hear about backlash in the aftermath of a ‘wrong’ call made by an offical. Technology has been implemented into sports competitions around the world in an aim to perfect any issues revolving around live calls made my officials. However, in doing this, it is argued that some sports have lost their touch and focusing more on perfection than entertainment.

Welcome to my DA pitch where I will aim to delve into the impact of technology in sports and what it means for the future of sports in the short, medium and long term. My Digital Artefact will include a series of blogs and conclude with a Video Essay.

JAMES MUGGERIDGE