Author Archives: Andrew D

Uneven Growth: Fiction does not reflect reality. Or does it?

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To be honest, while I was at the exhibit I only sensed the smallest connection with science fiction media. My main concern being that many of the proposals embrace social responsibility, whereas many of the stories we have analyzed so far are mostly about ‘self’, each for their own, screw everybody else. That is, after all, the kind of mentality that we have been conditioned to expect in our day to day lives.

However, after learning about the cities and the proposed projects more specifically, I did get a small sense of connection to the material we have been working with so far, whether it was from a particular city’s current situation or the proposed solutions.

For example, both Mumbai and Rio de Janeiro currently exhibit a strong contrast between the rich and poor sections of the city. This made me think of the city we get to know in Metropolis.

Istanbul is a city where the growing middle class inhabit gated complexes in tower clusters over open land, leading to long hours of traffic and social isolation. It’s as if they live in their own little ‘cells’ and only leave to go to work and come back, which is a less radical version of the lifestyle that is prevalent in The Machine Stops. Among the proposed solutions is an open-source online network, KITO’da, which allows people in a given community to exchange services, goods, knowledge and skills. Reading that that made me think about how in an isolated society, the characters in DADOES needed an empathy box to connect and share with others.

Look, they're empathizing!

Look! They’re empathizing!

After watching Blade Runner I did a little reading online about its production, themes, etc. and I learned a nifty new word: retrofitting. It means ‘new or updated parts that are fitted to old or outdated systems’. The city of L.A. that we see in Blade Runner was a retrofitted landscape, with tall, light emitting towers and pyramids that were basically built around and on top of the old city, which can still be seen in the street scenes. The city of Lagos, a city covered by water that goes unused and that has a poor transportation system has a proposal for improving energy, water and transportation with the design of new infrastructure over the old. The result would be an efficient water city, somewhat like an African Venice. Similarly, in New York the outer boroughs are encouraged to build upwards to the unused air space without taking up the scarce remaining land.

Do replicants flee to 2019 Lagos instead?

Do replicants flee to 2019 Lagos instead?

I think they should.

I think they should.

Lastly, Hong Kong’s proposal of creating artificial islands to mitigate the population growth due to mainland Chinese immigrants made me think about a theme we have not explored yet: colonization. When migrating to Mars or other ‘Off-World Colonies’, what measures will the protagonists or their society/civilization have to employ to make the new worlds adapt to the incoming population? Part of Hong Kong’s project involves creating a series of myths and legends surrounding the artificial islands a means of establishing them as new and unique territories. Think of the possibilities such a proposal could offer to a science fiction novel or film revolving around colonization!

Empathizing with Replicants

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Blade Runner is a movie that had been on my “to-watch” list for a while, so I’m glad I finally had an excuse to make time to watch it. Given that I have now read the source material beforehand, I wonder if my experience would have been different if I hadn’t read Electric Sheep prior to watching the movie.

Though there are many, many differences between DADOES and Blade Runner, I find that the most significant deviation from the source material is the complete omission of Mercerism. Empathy is no longer the sole distinguishing characteristic between humans and androids. In fact, the difference between humans and replicants is very hard to pinpoint on a personal level, as the replicants we encounter seem to have developed some sort of emotion to a certain degree, Roy Batty being the one that displays the widest range throughout the movie, especially approaching the climax. Regardless, the Voight-Kampff test is still featured, but I got the feeling that it was not as relevant as it was in the book.

Although animals (and the relationship with and possession of them) have a secondary role, they still make a prominent appearance in the movie. I think this is one of those things that I would have found odd if I had not read the book first. Almost all the animals we encounter are ersatz versions, such as Eldon Tyrell’s owl and Zhora’s snake, with her claiming that she wouldn’t be working as an exotic dancer if she could afford a real one (54:24). This is the first and only mention of real vs. artificial animals in Blade Runner. We can also see a man walking with a huge bird on his shoulder at 45:46, and T.F. Sebastian is shown to possess a mouse or rat, although there is no way to tell if they are real or artificial. Neither is relevant to the overall plot anyway. I found it interesting that although animals were such a “human thing” in the book, it is the replicants that seem to have some sort of affinity with them in the movie. Zhora possesses an artificial snake, and during his deranged persecution of Deckard, Roy howls and pretty much behaves like a wolf stalking its prey.

Speaking of Deckard, I found myself not really caring about him as I kinda did in the book. His character seemed somewhat dry and impersonal, which is by no means Harrison Ford’s fault, it’s just the way the character was supposed to be. One of the few times I felt he experienced some sort of emotion was after retiring Zhora. Zhora’s retirement scene was very emotionally charged, with the way she was running away and basically gunned down from behind, crashing into a glass display, even Deckard himself was shaken up. The scene really humanized her and you could sense her distress and feel her pain. I guess this is how book Deckard must have felt when Resch shot Luba Luft in cold blood. Luba was a singer, Zhora an exotic dancer and they just wanted to live their life but had to die just because of what they were.

Another scene where Deckard shows emotion is when he was coming on to Rachel in his apartment. As a person watching this scene in 2015, and with all the controversy surrounding date rape culture and the emphasis of giving explicit consent, this scene seemed to portray Deckard as a lonely horny detective taking advantage of the young, virginal Rachel. However, as I thought about it, these issues were not as public back when the movie was made as they are now. Still, it was a little awkward to see in the movie, since in the book it was basically Rachel that was coming on to him and we also had Rick’s internal dialog the whole time where he had conflicting emotions regarding “loving” an android.

Two of the characters that stood out to me regarding their motives and behavior were Leon Kowalski and Roy Batty. As I was rewatching clips of some of the scenes, I realized that they both made similar comments while beating Rick up. During their fight at 62:30 Leon says:

Painful living in fear, isn’t it?

Similarly, during the final confrontation Roy says at 105:16

Quite an experience, to live in fear, isn’t it? That’s what it feels like to be a slave.

Based on these two quotes we learn that replicants experience fear, a very human emotion. According to Roy, this fear stems from them being slaves, not having freedom to choose their own path, something most of us humans take for granted. In what is one of the best quotes of the movie, during his physical breakdown as his body starts to perish, Roy tells Deckard that he has seen things that humans could never imagine, and that all his memories will be lost like tears in rain. In the end, Roy’s goal, and presumably the rest of the replicants’, was to preserve his memories by extending his life, seeing as replicants cannot reproduce and pass on their memories or their genes to future generations.

Finally, one of the things that I missed from the book was that there was no Buster Friendly. I was a bit curious as how he would be fleshed out on screen. I was imagining that he would be a kind of loudmouth public figure seen on screens everywhere, somewhat like Stanley Tucci’s Caesar Flickerman in the recent Hunger Games movies. However, without the Mercerism subplot there was no need for Buster Friendly and his Friendly Friends, nor for Iran Deckard now that I come to think of it.

Overall I enjoyed Blade Runner, and I can see why it has become a Science Fiction classic film. I wouldn’t say it was better or worse than DADOES because, even though they share the same general premise and similar cast of characters, they are different enough that I can easily think of them as separate works, each with their own positive and negative sides.

The Andy that got away

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Picking up on ch 16 we witness the encounter of Deckard and Rachel Rosen. He requested her help to retire the three remaining androids assigned to him, and when she reads the poop sheet on Pris Stratton she becomes upset. At first I thought that she felt identified with Pris, with them being the same android model, I even thought that she empathized with her, but we soon find out that she is in fact willing to retire her herself. With a flirtatious to and fro, Deckard and Rachel end up having sex. Right afterwards Rachel reveals herself as a Bounty Hunter Seducer, a kind of sexbot, assigned by the Rosen Association to sleep with and confuse bounty hunters to the point that they no longer desire to retire andys. Deckard feels angry at this betrayal, and is even willing to retire her, realizing that she had already resigned herself to die, a trait he thought all androids had in common. They basically lack the will to fight and survive that a true living organism with billions of years of evolution has (Ch. 17, p. 200). In the end lets her live with the pretext that she only has two more years until her artificial metabolism stops working and she becomes obsolete.

Back with John Isidore and we find that he is happy with finally having company, even though he is fully aware that the androids are using him, as he reflected:

You have to be with other people, he though. in order to live (Ch. 18, p. 204).

Not long after we hear the big “revelation” from Buster Friendly: Mercerism is a swindle. Or is it really? Between the torture of the spider by Pris and the TV announcement, Isidore seems to be having a breakdown, during which he manages to connect to his empathy box, somehow causing Wilbur Mercer to materialize on the spot. This part is somewhat confusing, as you’re not sure if his exchange with Mercer is happening in reality or in his head. Mercer uses his powers of resurrection to heal the tortured spider, causing Isidore to run away with it, bumping into Deckard on the way. Here again, the supposedly materialized form of Mercer somehow manages to warn Deckard about Pris Stratton who is hiding behind and rushing towards him, laser tube in hand. He retires her, and then proceeds to… somewhat easily, it seems… retire Roy and Irmgard Baty. Honestly I was expecting more of a showdown, with some eloquent speech from Roy before being destroyed. Instead we get Deckard admitting his love for Rachel Rosen.

Returning home, Rick finds that Rachel has killed his Black Nubian goat, and he proceeds to run off to the Oregon desert, where once again, things get confusing. Rick claims to have physically merged with Mercer, and as he begins walking up a hill, he takes a rock to the groin. It is never revealed who threw the rock. Maybe the fact that he is now one with Mercer makes rocks hurl themselves at him? Anyway, he goes back to his car, sniffs some snuff and sees a living toad, which are thought to be all extinct. The sight of the toad seems to bring a renewed energy to him. He captures it and enthusiastically runs home to show Iran. She discovers that the toad is an ersatz animal, and Rick is so mentally and physically tired that he just decides to go to bed. Iran kisses him to comfort him and this makes him pleased, like he was before knowing the toad was artificial. I guess in the end he realized that he is alive, he has his wife, and an animal, although fake. Rick Deckard ends the story in the same circumstances he was at the beginning.

Conclusion

Although entertaining at times, the more esoteric parts of the story were confusing, especially concerning Mercerism. Although a work of Science Fiction, DADOES introduced a heavy spiritual element with the religion, its followers and its practices. These were all very human concepts, not mechanical, digital or robotic.

I know it’s not due until next week, but I’m off to watch Blade Runner now, hoping for a better ending.

 

PS: Rachel Rosen killed Rick’s goat and got away with it. What a b*tch.

Kippleization, immortal celebrities, Buster vs Mercer & plot twist!

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Ok, I could have sworn the scheduled reading this week was ch 6-10, so this initial post will concern those chapters. I will edit it once I’ve caught up with ch 11-15.

Leaving aside Rick Deckard for a moment, we got a glimpse of John Isidore’s side-story beginning with his encounter with Rachel Rosen/Pris Stratton. During his introduction to her he introduces the terms kipple and kippleization. These terms coined by the author referred to the trivial trash that we tend to accumulate: papers, wrappers, old furniture and belongings , etc. It is interesting the way that Isidore explains the process of kippleization to Rachel/Pris, that trash genuinely reproduces and spreads by itself, as if it were a matter of fact. A scientific fact.

Speaking of Rachel/Pris, to the reader it becomes evident that she is an android, with her hesitation and analytical way of thinking and speech. She calculates every possibility  that could result from doing what Isidore suggests, although her mechanical mannerisms must have gone over the chickenhead’s head.

After his encounter with Rachel/Pris, Isidore heads to work and we learn about Amanda Werner who is being featured on the Buster Friendly radio show that Isidore listens to. The way her life is described draws many parallels to some celebrities of today, especially reality celebrities, that are famous for no apparent reason:

“Women like Amanda Werner never made movies, never appeared in plays; they lived out their queer, beautiful lives as guests on Buster’s unending show…”

Through Isidore’s internal dialogue we are informed that celebrities such as Buster Friendly and Amanda Werner are on radio and television about twenty-three hours a day all year round, prompting Isidore to ask his boss, Mr. Sloat, if the characters are some form of immortal beings from another system, and leading the reader to wonder if they are androids as well. We also learn through Isidore that Buster friendly tends to mock Mercerism on his shows, leading him to suggest to his boss that Buster and Mercer are fighting for control over people’s “psychic souls”, a war that Mr. Sloat suggests that Buster is winning.

After Isidore’s ordeal with Horace, the electric cat that resulted to be real and is now dead, we rejoin Rick Deckard as he attempts to administer the Voight-Kampff test to opera singer Luba Luft, and here is where things start to become tangled. Miss Luft manages to evade Deckard’s questions, although it is not made clear at the moment if this results from her being a Nexus-6 android itelligently avoiding the test, or an actual singer’s eccentric absent-mindedness. Regardless of the reason, Luft ends up calling a harness bull (uniformed policeman) to arrest the bounty hunter. Deckard, thinking it is all a misunderstanding that can be sorted out at the police headquarters, does not put up resistance and goes with Officer Crams. When they start heading to a police HQ he has never heard before, Deckard realizes he’s in trouble. Stripped of his weapons and documents, Deckard is taken to the senior police officer Inspector Garland. While going through Deckard’s papers, Garland notices that he himself is next on the list of androids to be retired by Deckard. At this moment Deckard is suspected to be an android himself…

– To be continued –

Passing the Voight-Kampff test

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Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? The question itself sounds almost absurd, but as I read more of the novel, it starts to resemble a genuine question, and although I have a vague idea of where the plot is heading with the title alone, I don’t want to jump to conclusions before reading the rest of it.

These first five chapters have been an interesting read, although I do gt the feeling that there are some elements that have not been completely fleshed out so far, one of them being the setting. We know the exact year, and based on our discussion of ‘The Machine Stops’ in the last class, I try to imagine the “future 2021” that a person from 1968 (the year DADOES was published) would. I guess this is somewhat challenging as opposed to envisioning 2021 as we do today. The world I am building in my head while reading is a sort of retro-future, if that’s the correct term.

Parts of the story that have stood out to me so far are:

– Rick and Iran’s (and presumably anyone else that owns one) dependency on the ‘Penifold Mood Organ’ in order to start the day, by artificially administering hormones/chemicals into their body/brain. Although not fully explored, I have a feeling the Mood Organ, or the dependency thereof, will play an important part in the plot at some point. The mood machine and the way it operates might be symbolizing a chemical dependency of some sort.

– A post-apocalyptic Earth, where human reproduction is controlled by the government. The concept of “specials” as individuals carrying distorted genes due to radioactive toxic dust, and the measures men must take in order to protect their… seed.

– A strange religion, or belief system, called Mercerism, based on the possession of live animals and the ability to empathize with other living beings, and the “fusion” with the televised image of Wilbur Mercer, where the individual visualizes or hallucinates a connection to every other individual on Earth, with the hallucination having actual physical effects.

– The concept of  “emphatically underdeveloped” individuals, people who do not demonstrate the expected reactions to the Voight-Kampff test for discerning androids from humans, which (SPOILER ALERT) Rachael is described as before being revealed as an Android. The test itself seems to be about detecting slight physical reactions to verbal cues describing cruel or harmful situations toward animals (and a baby).This makes me wonder how much of the test is based on actual [in-universe] science, and how much of it revolves around Mercerism. Regardless of its basis, if there really is a small subset of humans that can fail the test and be falsely identified as a rouge andy, bounty hunters such as Deckard run the risk of “retiring” an actual person. I have a feeling this will become an important plot point as the story approaches its climax.

‘The Machine Stops’ & ‘Metropolis’ review – Andrew D

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The Machine Stops

One of the things that I found different in this reading from other narratives is that the in-universe or setting was not all explained at once. Instead, relevant details were revealed little by little as the story went along, which in a way made me want to keep on reading in order to understand it fully. At the beginning all you get is a description of Vashti’s chamber, and as you read you start to realize that every aspect of her life is mechanized, and eventually it is revealed that that is the way all of society exists in that time.

I also found it interesting and ironic that while this society had become ‘advanced’ enough to consider religion irrelevant, the Machine came to become their deity over the centuries, a view that became intensified in the time the story itself takes place.

I couldn’t help but notice the similarities between the interactions with other humans through ‘speaking tubes’ and the way we as a society today have become dependent on social media to keep in touch with people in our lives. Also, the way the ‘Machine’ provides all the needs of the people with the press of a button made me think about how nowadays a person can technically live the way the protagonists do in the story, by ordering everything they need online, communicating through the internet and never leaving the house. For a novel written in 1909, that was a pretty good prediction. Hopefully it does not reach to the point that Vashti and her society did.

Metropolis

Although slightly confusing at first, it is easy to see why Metropolis has become a classic film in Science Fiction. It was one of the first films to feature technology and machinery as a central theme, not only narratively, but visually as well.

Similarly to ‘The Machine Stops’, we encounter a society that has become dependent on machinery in order to function properly, with the difference that in Metropolis we encounter a social divide between the ‘head’ (the wealthy folk who run the society and live a hedonistic lifestyle) and the ‘hand’ (the lower-class workers who must operate the machinery in order for everything to function). I personally liked the way the saying at the beginning, “The mediator between head and hands must be the heart!”, was fulfilled at the end with Freder being the the mediator (the heart), between his father and the working class.

Conclusions

The thing I found that both stories had most in common was the way they portrayed how becoming overly dependent on technology can have detrimental consequences for a society or civilization when that technology fails and turns its back on its creators, that technology being the Machine and the doppelganger Maria respectively. It is a common theme that pops up in Science fiction, and it’s interesting to see how they come up in such early examples of the genre.

Introduction – Andrew Dutt

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Robotics

Robotics – Done for an old illustration project. Friend or foe?

Hey folks. I’m Andrew Dutt, and I’m studying Communication Design here at City Tech. I’m in the Graphic Design module, although I also have an interest in Illustration. I have an Associate’s Degree in Graphic Design from the Art Institute of NYC, and I’m working on getting my Bachelor’s here. I currently work as a graphic designer in a home decor company, although my goal is to obtain a position in a science-related field where I can create informative graphics and illustrations, such as for museum exhibits or scientific articles.

Ever since I can remember I have had an avid interest in the natural world, and my curiosity for classifying and organizing living things has lead to me being somewhat of a Biology “nerd”. I have a special fondness for learning about extinct organisms, I guess you can say i never grew out of that “dinosaur phase” that some kids go through. As such, I am usually up to date with latest paleontological discoveries, and keep track of the latest trends in paleoart, which is art created with the goal of depicting extinct species, their behavior and relationships with one another and their environment as scientifically accurately as our current knowledge allows. On the rare occasions when I have free time, I like to create some paleoart myself, some of which can be seen on my devianArt account.

With all that said, one of the aspects that draws me to Science Fiction is the plethora of creatures and beings, whether from our time, planet, dimension or another that are often used as a trope, or sometimes the main antagonist, in the genre. I especially find it delightful when authors, writers, directors, concept artists and creature designers base parts of their creations on real-life animals (or plants), sometimes obscure species, which for the more inquisitive members of the audience go on to spark interest in the actual thing.

Now some fun facts:

As a writer/thinker, I feel that my strength and weakness is one and the same. I sometimes feel that I have so many ideas that I would like to express, that it becomes a challenge to choose where to start. I sometimes need a very specific prompt to get me going, but once I’m on the right track, I can go on and on.

I have not used OpenLab in a class before, however I do spend a considerable amount of my limited free time reading blogs, and especially the discussions in the comment section, although I mostly feel that I don’t have anything to contribute to the discussion so I mostly “lurk” the comment section. Hopefully this class will help me come out of my shell in that respect.

To me, Science Fiction is a form of narrative that incorporates scientific or pseudo-scientific logic to drive the plot, it is meant to give off a feeling that the things that happen in the story are or could be based in reality, and that supernatural occurrences happen for a reason and are not a product of “magic”.

Science is a set of theories and hypotheses that can be experimented on and the results can be repeated (if my memory of Bio and Psych is correct). Fiction is something that is not based on reality, it was created by an author/writer.

Science Fiction is often produced by creative individuals who have an interest in science and technology and it’s relationship and contrast to our own humanity. It is usually consumed by individuals with some ‘nerdy’ or ‘geeky’ tendencies (stereotyping here, sorry).

In my opinion, there are only men in this class because of the way society influences gender roles. Most young girls are raised in such a way that by the time they are adults, they are mostly interested in emotional narrative and drama. This not only applies to women, as Science Fiction is usually seen as “geeky”, and it usually does happen to appeal to a certain demographic. Your average jock isn’t interested in Science Fiction either, unless it involves explosions and/or scantly-clad women…

There is a woman teaching this course because Prof. Belli is knowledgeable about the subject 🙂

Science Fiction is definitely a genre of literature, a very quirky and unique one at that.

Some of my favorite media in Science Fiction are :
– Jurassic Park, movie and novel by Michael Crihcton. A no brainer for a paleonerd.
– Primeval, a British series about time portals and creatures from prehistory and future that pop out of them and the team whose mission is to contain and return them.
– The Alien franchise. I find the Xenomorph life cycle fascinating, plus they’re the ultimate biological killing machine.
– The Fifth Element. Saw it as a kid, so it’s somewhat nostalgic with it’s alien designs and mix of comedy/action.
– Men in Black. Same as above.
– Signs, by M. Night Shyamalan. I actually liked it despite the silly climax, made me jump in a few scenes, plus Gray or Gray-like aliens have always creeped me out.
– The Thing, by John Carpenter. Saw it in recent years due to a growing interest in Sci-Fi Horror. Bloody brilliant.
– Event Horizon. Same as above. Bloody gory.
– I have been wanting to read H.P. Lovecraft, but unfortunately have not found the time to do so. Hopefully some time in the close future.

Lastly, what I expect to learn in the class is more about the history of how Science Fiction came to exist as a genre of literature, learn about new authors and stories I might enjoy, and learn how to critically deconstruct a narrative (my current method involves spending hours after hours on TV Tropes soaking in every bit of information on a specific franchise/medium/topic/trope, which I see as a passive form of procrastination. That may or may not be a bad thing).

P.S. The illustration featured above was done for a project where the theme was Robotics. It was done many years ago, and i guess that you could say I was influenced by The Matrix and Terminator in some of my robot designs. It shows a  humanoid android cradling a human child in its arms, while an ominous sentinel-type machine looms behind with a menacing mechanical arm reaching for the baby. This dichotomy prompts the question: are the machines our friends or foe?