Mediacology

Mankind, which in Homer’s time was an object of contemplation for the Olympian gods, now is one for itself. Its self-alienation has reached such a degree that it can experience its own destruction as an aesthetic pleasure of the first order.

Walter Benjamin

Via Goodie Bag

2012: Great mat boards of destruction!

If you are at all a perceptive being, then you feel that “collapse” is in their air. The rise in apocalyptic fiction, books, TV shows, documentaries and cultural groups are expanding exponentially. This Fall’s slate of blockbuster films is no exception. As cultural interpreters, what can we glean from the [...]

The first ad is the latest from Barclay’s Bank which seeks to distinguish itself from the financial fakers. Ironically, though, they seem to have aligned themselves with all the other sci-fi genre films dealing with false realities (such as Dark City, also posted above– see also The Matrix and Truman Show). The troubling thing for [...]

I’ve written an extended essay about the conclusion of Battlestar Galactica. I hope you will click through and read the whole piece at Reality Sandwich.

Reality Sandwich | Battlestar Galactica Mystique:

Spoiler alert!
“Earth, a dream we’ve been chasing for a long time.”–Admiral Adama
So concludes one of the greatest epic runs of sci-fi on TV: Battlestar Galactica (reimagined). [...]

Thank the Great Whatever that someone compiled the top 25 sci-fi movie ads. It is something I started on my own a while back but couldn’t find the time or energy to get it done. The scene from Minority Report (clip above) is in my opinion the most likely future scenario (aside from ads being [...]

Air Force Academy chapel, Colorado Springs, CO

Cylon Resurrection Ship, somewhere in outer space
In case you haven’t seen Sci-Fi network’s Battlestar Galactica (I highly recommend that you do), the premise of the story is that a race of robots created by humans decides to destroy their creators. The cyborgs, called Cylons, have developed a theistic [...]

How do you turn mat art into a viral video? Sci-Fi’s Tin Man series has this wormhole site that draws you into its various worlds– one after another. It’s a compelling visual fantasy; you have to give the creators credit for having cajones to tackle the Oz story and contemporize it with darker themes. [...]

…I felt that I was trying to describe an unthinkable present and I actually feel that science fiction’s best use today is the exploration of contemporary reality rather than any attempt to predict where we are going…The best thing you can do with science today is use it to explore the present. Earth is the [...]

A viral sci-fi video on MySpace called Afterworld (this is the first in 130 2-3 minute movies) has an animated character lamenting that his contribution to the spread of technology led to the end of the world. Hmmm. So maybe we should take him for his word and believe that some day an animated program [...]

I hate re-blogging BoingBoing, but this item really got my attention. In case you haven’t read the Red, Green, Blue Mars trilogy by Kim Stanley Robinson, it is a great allegory about the various strategies a society can make to create a sustainable planet. It is the best ecological sci-fi series next to Dune that [...]

Well kidz, once again we are in for a treat. There is a new William Gibson book, Spook Country, on the horizon and I can’t wait. Pattern Recognition was such a prescient look at media, I’m always curious to see what Gibson’s imagination conjures from the global pop ethers. For his new book, Gibson posted [...]

So, it turns out Blade Runner turned 25, a film that almost wasn’t made. Thank the Great Whatever that it was, for it remains one of the most near and dear to my heart as the standard of science fiction filmmaking. This is one of those situations that when confronted with such a great work [...]

With the exception of Children of Men, Blade Runner and Brazil (OK, I know there are a few more out there), there is a strangely clinical feel to future spaces. So I was thrilled when I encountered today this wonderful futuristic sports arena in Rome, Palazzetto dello sport by Pier Luigi Nervi, built for [...]

I was a big fan of Lost, but since moving to Europe I have not been able to watch it. ABC blocks foreign access to the free viewings available in the US. Though news of the Lost college course is being offered is old news, I found the following post interesting. Some critics still think [...]

This is not necessarily media related, but since I love sci-fi, I just want to gush at the possibility that Sunshine may be the next “2001.” Shot by Trainspotting director Danny Boyle, Sunshine has an intriguing plot. From IMDB:
The Sun is being destroyed from inside out by a type of highly stable form of matter [...]

A clever marketing trick: make a commercial from a fictional product in your book that is unusual, strange and sexy. Add YouTube and the blogosphere, mix and you have a meme. Additionally the Web tie-in is similar to what the ABC series Lost has done with its show by constructing a parallel universe on the [...]

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It’s about time the pop culture produced a decent dystopic cult movie. Enter Children of Men, directed by Mexican filmmaker Alfonso Cuaron (Y tu mama tambien, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban), a post-Baghdad, Road Warrior-type movie sans the cheesy trappings of antiseptic sci-fi. Add one part Black Hawk Down, two parts Blade Runner, [...]

Be forewarned, a movie about magic employs the principle technique of enchantment: misdirection. Thus any film claiming to be about magic has as its subtext the fact of the film itself, which is a carefully constructed illusion, just as any Hollywood motion picture about spectacle is ultimately self-referential (such as Gladiator being a veiled commentary [...]

It has been said that if you think you are watching a show about a bunch of plane crash survivors, you are watching the wrong show. The show in question, of course, is Lost. The surprise breakout on ABC is most definitely not your average program, and the one thing that keeps me interested is [...]

Few films are as gratifying as X-Men: The Last Stand. The effects are seamless, plot complex, emotions driven and social issues nuanced and prescient. The movie as dream is utterly captivating, and since most will focus on the entertaining aspect of the film, I just want to point out a few social aspects worth noting.
The [...]