User:Dave Young/PotemkinTechnologies/2012

Trimester 2, Year 1.

NOTE: All documentation material, PDF, photos, videos, etc, must be uploaded to the wiki. No embedding or third party hosts allowed, for obvious archiving issues ;)

NOTE: Please use "your name, the title of your project, the year" as page name.

Description

Inspired by the set design of science-fiction films, I became interested in how computers are represented in popular cinema. Before it became another accepted domestic appliance, the experience of computer technologies was mediated largely through fictions and corporate propaganda - either cinematic or literary. Companies such as IBM and Bell Labs presented 'documentaries' or info-graphic animations explaining how computers were friendly, servile devices that would perform banale tasks on behalf of their human operators. In most science fiction films, we can see arrays of blinking lights, silently creating patterns: a performance of the act of calculation.

My project had two outcomes - a physical object, and a re-edit of a science fiction film called Colossus. The physical object was an attempt to creative a 'performative' computer interface, linking back to the science fiction set design aesthetic of ambient facades. It was agreed that this outcome was not particularly successful and did not engage with any criticality the issues surrounding the use of computers at this time.

The second outcome - the re-edit of Colossus, turned out to be a more interesting way of talking about the issues I'm most interested in. I am now working on a film essay as a means of discussing these issues in greater depth, and I am also developing a framework for a lecture with more re-edited films as an accompaniment. I think the assessment re-aligned my interests and helped focus them on to a method with which I can more critically engage with my research material.

Essay

Abstract and bibs/ref + link to PDF (PDF must be uploaded to wiki).
Use Steve's recommendations for abstract length and bibliographic style.

Additional Information

optional

• Project URL (if lives on an external site)
• extra wiki links (in case you have relevant notes/journals/documentation in your User: page, this is useful particularly if you have been asked to articulate further or refine your project during your assessment)
• Animated GIFs