INTRODUCTION
Each week students in the BCM325 cohort had to live tweet their own knowledge and comprehension of the lecture materials taught in class, to demonstrate that they grasped the concepts behind representational futures explored in a series of sci-fi/adventure films. In weeks ranging 6 to 11 the representation of the future versus reality was interesting to live tweet as students were able to share deep philosophical viewpoints concerning the future in contrast to present day reality while watching HER, ARRIVAL, ALITA BATTLE ANGEL, READY PLAYER ONE and EVERYTHING EVERYWHERE ALL AT ONCE.
WEEK SEVEN Artificial Intelligence ‘HER’
HER 2014, was a fascinating sci-fi film that amplified the meaning of autopoietic, where Theodore the leading protagonist shared his deep connection and romantic feelings towards Samantha, his AI assistant.
The theme for this week was understanding death and morality, as humans evolve, reproduce and die. Humans have created a social system that we have to abide by, however HER explored the idea where we challenged society’s norms.
When live tweeting I took into consideration the two core paradoxes, The authenticity paradox: It’s inauthentic to be authentic and the liberal paradox: Demanding tolerance is intolerant. I found myself drawn to the romanticism observed in Theodore and Samantha’s relationship and discovered that they followed the authenticity paradox. And how AI are becoming a helpful tool for many users online to find romantic partners through different social media channels.
The film also shared how computer systems have algorithms however, they do not have the capacity to fully evolve into an autopoietic system. The idea in the film where Samantha is able to communicate her emotions from understanding how society communicates, is adjacent to Theodore, who tends to overthink and does not have the ability to freely communicate what is on his mind or express his own feelings. This captured the idea where the ‘mind thinks, they don’t communicate’.
This Tweet by Benjamin is rather observant and evokes the receiver to think about how humans tend to humanise many non-existent objects such as AI assistants including Alexa and Siri.
WEEK EIGHT Futurists ‘ARRIVAL’
‘Futurists take on a persona and perspective which involves analysing current trends and investing time and energy into your own unique ideas about the future‘ (Wk 8 Lecture Slide).
This week we explored Arrival, 2016, the film revolves around a female translator whose aim is to figure out the intentions of these unknown terrestrial beings who have arrived on planet Earth. The sci-fi film follows the concept of this week’s lecture ‘decision-making’, as it is important for futurists to consider the different outcomes when it comes to predicting the future. Futurists must take on the ethical and moral evaluation to guide their perspectives and rationality when making a decision. I attempted to showcase the material I have learned in class by demonstrating key notes through scenes in Arrival.
The variable cultural technique shares the communication process during interaction, as trust is a major component in communication and allows individuals to freely express themselves without judgement. Louise in this scene depicts the variable culture technique where ‘any attempt at increasing formalisation always increases attempts at informal circumvention’(Wk 8 Lecture Slide) and how individuals must consider the location, status and timing of any given situation to communicate effectively and make the appropriate decisions.
This tweet revealed the narrativistic rationality where ‘Once an explicit decision has been made, it tends to become narrativized and gain its own rationality retroactivity in the telling of its story’(–). She developed an emotional attachment to these alien specimens as she learned their names, gained their trust and developed a bond throughout the film.
WEEK NINE Cyborgs ‘ALITA BATTLE ANGEL’
In this week I was absent from class
This movie presents a vision of the future, as a planet desolated by a conflict with the United Republics of Mars (URM).
I was not able to tweet this week, however, I was able to comprehend the concept of cyborgs. The notion that in the future we predict more cyborg activity as we are developing technology and influential figures, for example Elon Musk, is addressing ways we can see potential growth towards this possibility of cyborgs in the near future. ‘All technologies are extensions of our physical and nervous systems to increase power and speed. And ‘any extensions, whether of skin, hand or foot, affects the whole psychic and social complex’(Wk 9 Lecture Slide).
Alita, the main protagonist in this film, explores the term heuristic as she encounters a series of events that enable her to truly discover her own abilities and learn more about herself.
WEEK TEN Cyberspace ‘READY PLAYER ONE’
I had a car booking
Ready Player One, set in 2045, portrays a world that is particularly challenging to survive in. To escape their reality, and the difficulties in their lives, people have started relying on a simulated world called Oasis in pursuit of cyberspace. This raises the question as to whether virtual reality could, in the future, be preferred over the daily reality of peoples’ lives. Would people choose to spend more time in VR than experience an overly challenging real life existence in the present?
Cyberspace: A consensual hallucination experienced daily by billions of legitimate operators, in every nation. A graphic representation of data abstracted from banks of every computer in the human system. Unthinkable complexity. Lines of light ranged in the nonspace of the mind, clusters and constellations of data, like city lights receding (Wk 10 Lecture Slide).
In addition, cyberculture is presenting this virtual reality in the OASIS where the Ontologically Anthropocentric: Sensory Immersive emerges from computer networks in the shape of business and entertainment.
WEEK ELEVEN Paradigm Shift ‘EVERYTHING EVERYWHERE ALL AT ONCE’
The movie Everything Everywhere All at Once explores the concept of multiverse theory and the idea that every decision made by humans creates a new universe. Where every decision made by humans has consequences, which ultimately lead to different outcomes, even in different universes through the paradigm shift. The film Everything Everywhere All At Once explored diverse paradigms such as presentational and representational media paradigms.
In this tweet I emphasised how mobile devices simulate a different reality into multiple social networks where our public online personas are being displayed through the presentational media paradigm.
Representational media paradigm is the idea in which individuals’ decision making influences the trajectory of others seen in public personalities (celebrities/social media influencers). As they are encoded through the sender-message-receiver, channelling the traditional media content we consume.
Another thought evoking concept in the film was ‘first jumping’ where we observe films including the Matrix as passageways through the multiverse. I imagined intercommunication being filtered through first jumping as it touches on interpersonal ways humans transmit and exchange messages, in this case the power to alter and enhance a person’s ability to act out something. First jumping is having the power to embody other people’s lives/ realities.
Carla Cavancha 