Ursula Hentschlaeger
Zelko Wiener
Vice Versa. Mediatised
Projections in the Worlds of Science-Fiction Movies
1998
This work aimed at focusing on a
mediatised notion of the mirror, which can mainly be defined on
the basis of distinctions: If, in visions of the future, the
traditional mirror still serves as
1. an
instrument of observation, self-knowledge and exposure, and
2. as a means
to condense interior worlds and dream worlds then the
"new" ways of mirroring, which are eventally always
mediatised project-ions, find their equivalents in
3. digital
instruments (of control) or as
4.
constructions of reality in a fictitious cyberspace.
BACKGROUND
OBSERVATION
Science fiction is about what we imagine
the future to be like. What would be more logical than looking
at the status quo and developing it further?
In the worlds of science-fiction movies
there is prima facie evidence that applications we find there
could be what consumers today might "soon" be
confronted with. Before "Total Recall" nobody
imagined walls filled with huge flat-screen TV sets in a way
that would be appealing to a mass audience. This leads to the
assumption that the field of sci-fi movies is also a way of
presenting new technologies so as to slowly prepare the public
for them.
One of the main reproaches against more
recent sci-fi movies is that they go overboard with violence.
We can hardly find an argument against that. However, systems
are still controlled by people and these systems become ever
more powerful in terms of their potential for mass destruction,
so that current cruise missiles leave no room for doubt as to
the fact that brutality and violence are not limited to the
world of sci-fi movies. If governments today are able to wage
wars, why should governments in visions of the future not be
able to do the same? Much is doubtlessly a matter of what you
think and feel as a matter of principle, but neither the one
nor the other can be changed by technology.
INTRERIORWORLD
CONTROL
CONSTRUCTION
CONCLUSION
