Utopias and Dystopias

1
Utopias and Dystopias

• Technologys Hopes and Fears

2
Overview of last modules

• Module 4 technology and social relations,
  including cultural practices and modes of
  relating to technology
• Module 5 technology and social spaces, including
  public/private spaces, virtual space and
  conceptual spaces such as public sphere

3
This Module

• Psychological dimensions of technologies
• Metaphysical dimensions
• Experiential dimensions
• The effects on the self

4
Collective Imaginary

• A vision all members of a community understand
  and share
• Creates a sense of belonging and strengthens
  relations (imaginary constitutes community)
• Example the role of collective imaginary in the
  formation and relations of a nation

5
Virtual Imaginary

• Collective imagination of cyberspace
• Two extremes of relations to technology Utopian
  and dystopian visions
• Importance of virtual imaginary key to the
  constitution of communities of interest

6
Themes in Visions of Heaven and Hell

• Body and its relations to machines
• Intelligence in relation to technology
• Social relations mediated by cyberpower, e.g.
  cyber democracy, surveillance
• Physiological, social, environmental impacts of
  technology

7
Questions Feeding the Debates

• Can everything be reduced to information
  (digitized)?
• Does life have to be organic (e.g. are bots
  alive)?
• Does intelligence have to be dependent on organic
  matter (e.g. can we download our intelligence
  into a harddrive)?
• What role should we give cyber technology in
  mediating social relations such as governance?
• What are the boundaries of public/private?
• What are the relations between physical and
  non-physical (virtual)?

8
Critique

• Technological determinism is inherent in both
  utopian and dystopian visions of technology. By
  making technology the cause of our fears or the
  source of our hopes, we fail to assume
  responsibility and agency.

9
Visual Material

• Metropolis (Fritz Lang)
• Blade Runner (Ridley Scott)
• Lost in Space (Stephen Hopkins)
• The Middleton Family at the New Yorks World Fair
• http//www2.sjsu.edu/faculty/wooda/middleton/index
  .html

10
Notable Themes

• Towering and imposing architectural monstrosities
  (all three) and super-large and invasive media
• Machines and human creations enabled with human
  characteristics (physical and intellectual), such
  as robots (Metropolis), replicants (Blade
  Runner), machine-enhanced humans (Lost in Space)
• Environmental and/or degradation (all three)
• Humans as slaves to machinery (Metropolis) or
  machines as slave to humans (Blade Runner)
• Disasters and social ills (all three)
• Developing more and better technology to
  rectify the ills or to colonize new spaces