Lecture 9 Summary

Lecture 9 Summary...

*Will technology create a perfect future society?
* Will technology create a inhospitable future society?
* What can understanding the relationships between culture/technology/media tell us about our visions of the future?

We watched Johnny Mnemonic again in this lecture. The film is based on William Gibson writing about Utopian societies. Very interesting film.

www.spe.sony.com/Pictures/SonyMovies/06jonmnu.html

The main theme of this lecture that stuck out in my mind was the discussion on Utopia and Distopia and what they are..

Utopia, from my understanding of the lecture, comes from Greek mythology meaning a place that is perfect, or seems to be, and people and technology go hand in hand together. A lot of literary works are available on Utopia/Distopia. For example, Sir Thomas More's Utopia, 1516. Where Utopian writing is mixed with fors and against technology theories..

Although utopia is seen as a place where everything is perfect, natural and modified to the comfort of humans through use of technology, and if this imagine is to become to norm..it gives off to me a creepy feeling, almost that it is harmful.. In order for me to comprehend these terms a bit more I had to have a look around on the Internet.. and the following is what I came up with..

"UTOPIA: An imaginary place or government in which political and social perfection has been reached in the material world as opposed to some spiritual afterlife as discussed in the Christian Bible or the Elysian fields of The Odyssey. The citizens of such utopias are typically universally clean, virtuous, healthy, and happy, or at least those who are criminals are always captured and appropriately punished. A Utopian society is one that has cured all social ills."

http://web.cn.edu/kwheeler/lit_terms_U.html

An example Distopia can be shown through this quote from Lecture, "When the power goes off, you may wake to discover that your technology paradise is really hell"....

Erik Davis...technosis..he discusses technology as crossed with magic. Technology is a mystical thing which displays a Distopian theme. Distopia is the opposite feelings about a Utopian society, meaning its not what it looks like. Perfect on the outside and terrible within.

Neal Stevenson - Snow Crash (Cyberpunk fiction)

Quote: "Peace is disrupted by people who seek to exercise their own human agency and free will.."

Virtual community...

VC of the future looks like a perfect model with all the perfect technology..there is also a more prosaic, more human side to this vision in which we may realise a better life here on earth.

Cyberspace can also be a space in which connection and community are fostered, thereby enriching our lives as a social beings.

Howard Rheingold, author of the VC is one who believes cyberspace offers the hope of a restored sense of community. "Is this so?", I thought. We all have different views on community and the world and over time those views will change. Those will believe in what Rheingold has stated about the 'Restored" community and those will have other beliefs and not so much of a hope of cyberspace..

After discussing Utopia and Distopia we then watched a video called Animatrix http://www.intothematrix.com/ The film is made in virtual / cartoon graphics. It portrays the world being turned into a high tech world where robots did menial task which humans did not want to do.. These androids received no respect from there masters until one uprose and killed his masters, it was ordered that the Andriods all be killed. They were banished from humanity and were resurrected into their own half of the world, know as Zero 1, where they created Artificial Intelligence like never seen..

The second part of the film shows that the humans have nearly destroyed their own planet with the explosions of nuclear. Because of these explosions, it did not affect the robots and their plight to take over the world. The humans retaliated by cutting off the robots main supply of energy the sun. They covered the sky with a thick cover and war began..The robots dispensed great misery on the human race and captured thousands of human for testing. These testing created a Renascence with the combination of human/robots. All humans were placed into cocoons and placed into a virtual world.

Very interesting and wicked graphics..much better than the Matrix movie itself..Overall the lecture was one of the most interesting I've been to..