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As referenced in Week 4 lectures, William Gibson has been quoted as stating that “The future is already here — it’s just not evenly distributed” (2003). Gibson may be commenting on how different classes of people have varying degrees of access to technology — with rich people having access to the latest technologies that might extend their lives or simply make their lives easier, while poor folks are systematically denied access to medical and consumer technologies, also affecting their life spans. Within the context of this course, looking to the films screened in Unit 2, the racial, gender, sexual, class and/or disability identity of characters echo Gibson’s sentiment about how access and power vary for different identity groups even in stories about a technologically advanced present or future (e.g., the messiah role Neo is able to assume in The Matrix, the sexism experienced by Lola in Run Lola Run).
This prompt option asks you to analyze how one film or media artwork (viewed in class or on Bruin Learn) depicts technological constraint and/or possibility for its characters depending on how they are situated within the world of the film, or within the societies they are depicted to inhabit. The feature films we will view in this unit include: The Matrix, Run Lola Run, and Searching, and Sleep Dealer. You may also write about Black Mirror: Bandersnatch or Lynn Hershman Leeson’s Lorna project, or another example mentioned in course readings as long as you consult with your TA by the end of Week 5.
You must also engage either the Nakamura or Baudrillard reading in your response. You do not need to engage the questions below. They are there to help you begin brainstorming for your response. You may also consult with the reading summaries linked to on Bruin Learn.
Starting questions for Nakamura:
• How does uneven access to technology resonate with Lisa Nakamura’s work on race and science fiction, race and the Internet?
• How do our collective stories about the future (represented in films like The Matrix) reflect the unevenness Gibson brings up in this quote?
Starting questions for Baudrillard:
• How does this unevenness also affect how individuals experience hyperreality, or simulation? How is this represented either in the films we watched for class, and/or in the new media artwork that Legacy Russell (W1) and Holly Willis (W4) write about?
• Though he parts from Marxism in important ways, Baudrillard is trained in Marxist approaches that focus on class struggle as a driving influence on politics, the economy, and culture. How would his argument and concepts change if he were attentive to how race, gender, and sexual identity also shape postmodern experiences of the hyperreal
