BLEJD RANER 1982

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The science fiction genre in literature and film has influenced many innovations in technology and user interface design. Many ideas from film and literature have already been put to practice, and many seemingly fantastic technologies and their influences on society are being considered for development in the near future. User interface design in the domain of human-machine interaction is an interdisciplinary form that combines art, technology and science. Notable anticipation of tech culture and interface design can be found in the film Blade Runner from 1982, which is set in November 2019. We will compare anticipated technologies and interfaces that are featured in the film with the technologies that we use today, with a brief analysis of the influence they might have had on our society.

THE RELATION OF SCIENCE FICTION AND ADVERTISING

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The paper deals with the relation of science fiction and advertising, specifically in the representation of advertising in science fiction (film, literature and comics) and transformation of their forms into reality. It also includes examples of the influence of reality, which in the form of a certain esthetical discourse may offer a vision of the future and potential forms and modalities of advertising. Additionally, the paper covers possible modalities of advertising with use of (new) technologies, as depicted in the representations of the future in alternative film universes– i.e. in science fiction. Many authors have analysed the film Blade Runner and its visionary elements as prophecies of future reality, trying to answer the question how and to what extent, in their representations of the future, they were right in regard to the utilisation of technological innovations in modern advertising. The paper points to the cause-and effect relation between the occurrence of the fictive technologies in films and very fast prototyping and utilisation of the same or similar technologies for the purpose of advertising. The paper also reviews the consistence of the visual language of advertising through analysis of cult movies Blade Runner, Ghost in the Shell and Blade Runner 2049.

DYING IN VIDEO GAMES

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It is estimated that over two million people can be nominated as gamers. All of them play video games, and most of them create characters in these games and identify with them to such an extent that the characters become avatars of the players. And avatars die. Sometimes they are revived, sometimes not, depending on the game rules applicable to these characters and the worlds they inhabit. Sometimes the worlds themselves also perish. At such moments, one command can forever delete tens or hundreds of thousands of digital characters. They perish forever, in an irreversible act of server deletion, irresistibly similar to the end of the world. The end of a digital world, but still a world,especially if we observe it from the point of view of its inhabitants. From the destinies of these avatars, whether they perish in separate incidents or digital genocides, we can learn a thing or two – if not about the meaning of digital existence then undoubtedly about the manner in which people relate to their own finite nature.

STATUS – COMPLICATED

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The paper researches romance between humans and artificial intelligence, in terms of gender, in science fiction film narratives of the 21st century and examines the extent of the dominant matrix in which the man is human and the woman is artificial intelligence, subordinated to the male consumer/creator. Also, the paper explores what constitutes the gender identity of a woman as an Other in virtual and cybernetic environments, starting from the framework of the phenomenon of post human, as understood by Katerine Hayles and referred to by Slavoj Žižek, inspired by the cult essay A Cyborg Manifesto by Donna Harraway, as well as the gender determination as researched by Judith Butler in her dialogue with Simone de Beauvoir. In the film narrative slike Her by Spike Jonze (2013), Ex Machina by Alex Garland, Zoe by Drake Doremus (2018) and the debut film Ederlezi Rising by Lazar Bodroža (2018), a man creates and/or communicates with an android,building an emotional connection. On the other hand, in an episode of the BBC series Black Mirror titled Be Right Back (2013) directed by Owen Harris, there is a singular example of a woman re/creating the beloved man in the form of a silicone android. These examples destabilize rigid binary gender model, introducing new values to the concept of gender.

IS HOPE STILL ALIVE

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The text deliberates on the motion of narratives between SF literature and digital games and their connectivity, from the appearance of the first digital games to modern network games intended for large number of players. The narratives which move from SF texts to games and vice versa, which place games into narratives, reflect not only real social relations under which they have occurred, but also offer (possible) solutions for the problems of the modern world, primarily those caused by neoliberal politics. In them, the modern concept of a self-sufficient individual as a generator of change is abandoned, insisting on the idea that success may be attained only in cooperation and coordination of a large number of interested actors, displacing the battlefield from the plane of the physical to the plan of the digital.