Frankenstein conquers the World
Blade Runner 2049 “The Creature we Created will now destroy us…”
Romantic Creation: More Power, More Problems
Gothic: horror and the in-human / the un-dead (confusion, anxiety/dread, ruins, ghosts…)
On Art and Artificial Life: Makers and Replicants
Problems of identity: what is (or isn’t) a man? what makes us human? Wanderer Above the Sea of Fog (1818) / Deckard Eating Noodles (1982) The Abbey in the Oakwood, Caspar David Friedrich (1810) Interior of “The Bradbury” (J.F.Sebastian’s home) The problem of the “end”: Utopia and its Discontents U-topia/Eu-topia (no-place/good-place): an ‘ideal’ model for social and political order
Dys-topia (bad-place): both ‘ideal’ (imaginary) and ‘not ideal’ (not so good)
‘Nature’ as utopia: Gonzalo [Montaigne] ‘Nature’ as dystopia: Antonio [Hobbes]
The ‘end’ of teleology: the good/best? or death? Romantic critique of Enlightenment ‘progress’ Gonzalo’s “utopian” vision Gonzalo: “Had I plantation of this isle, my lord… And were the King on it, what would I do?” “…no kind of traffic would I admit…Letters should not be known; riches, poverty, and use of service, none…No occupation; all men idle, all, And women too, but innocent and pure…No sovereignty… Sebastian: “Yet he would be king on it..” Gonzalo: “All things in common nature should produce without sweat or endeavor… Sebastian: “No marrying ‘mong his subjects? Antonio: “None, man, all idle: whores and knaves.. Nature, Civilization and the “end” of Progress
The Course of Empire, Thomas Cole (1834-36)
Science Fiction: imagining a dystopian future
Brings to light what’s hidden in/at the present: what lies ‘beneath’ (or stays ‘off to the side’)
Dystopia: on the split ‘ends’ of Civilization: (Hobbes vs. Benjamin)
Two Worlds: the off-shore colonies / Earth Two Cities: Corporate Ziggurat / City of Work and Ruins… Ziggurat at Ur (Iraq), from 21st C. BCE Opening scene (city at night) The City as Character: setting the scene
An imaginary time/place, or ‘when’ and ‘where’ (what will probably happen; ‘who’ you might find)
Dark City: an under-World of Smoke and Shadows
The City as Cosmopolitan ‘Other’
The City at Work: Day and Night / Day as Night Dowlais Ironworks, George Childs (1840) Industrial Revolution
New machines, modes of power: textiles, steam Factory systems: Owners + Workers; Capital
Changes in relations in time and space: Urbanization, immigration, population growth Transportation, communication (rail, telegraph)
Changes in sensibility: e.g., speed of the modern Rain, Steam and Speed – The Great Western Railway, J.M.W. Turner (1844) City of Ghosts: new conditions of work
Productivity (“growth”) and the division of labor • Repetitive tasks, cheap labor, creation of surplus • Men, women and children; organized labor (unions)
Working in the dark: • Long days/nights inside the factories • Outside air filled with soot, tar, pollution
“Alienated labor” (Marx) • workers don’t own the objects of production • workers don’t control conditions of labor “Have you felt yourself to be exploited in any way?” “I don’t know such stuff, I just do eyes” “If only you could see what I've seen with your eyes!” Look into my eyes…
Leon’s test: ‘negative’ results (“Let me tell you about my mother!”)
Rachel’s test: ‘romantic’ effects (*??*) (Deckard: “Its too bright in here…”)
Roy and Tyrell: The prodigal son returns…
Roy and Deckard: “I’ve seen things you people wouldn’t believe…” Leon’s test Rachel’s test “Its not an easy thing to meet your maker…” On seeing and feeling Seeing and being seen by another not just a ‘test’ of humanity: it produces feelings and relations that make us human (revenge, fear, desire, love)
Seeing, memory, identity 1: on photographs (remembering one’s own past, copying others)
Seeing, memory, identity 2: aesthetic experience
What Roy sees with (his/Chew’s/Tyrell’s) eyes is what makes him most – ‘more than’? – human Roy and Deckard – final scene Who’s the Man? Roy?
Slavery, alienation, freedom: Aristotle v. Hegel
Is Roy “free” at the end? If so, why? (Death? Life? Experience? Ethics? Awareness?)
Is his experience “lost,” like tears in rain? or does it live on? How? Who’s the Man? Deckard?
Working for the Man: • “You’ve done a Man’s job, sir!”
Who / What is Deckard? • Human or Replicant? Master or Slave? Both? Neither?
What does the ending suggest about Deckard’s identity: his ‘nature’ and/or his development? Blade Runner 2049…
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MuiaUM ep_-c