The study aimed to develop a theory describing the nature of the relationship between industrial design and science fiction, based on the observation that science fiction caninspire industrial designers and enrich industrial design processes and products. The hypotheses were that: 1. The roles of industrial design and science fiction are based on parallel ideas. 2. Industrial design is suffused with, and sympathetic to, science fiction thinking. 3. There is a ‘cause and effect’ relationship between aspects of industrial design and science fiction. Science fiction cinema is a key ‘cause and effect’. 4. Science fiction cinema performs a key function in the roles of science fiction, and cinema can be employed to explore and discuss the roles of industrial design and science fiction. The study used a range of research methods. An extensive literature review critically compared and analysed the characteristics and roles of science fiction and industrial design. The analysis identified contrasting and common themes, ideas, processes, texts and subtexts between the two areas. The findings were further analysed using graphic analytical tools, to form models that described and structured the industrial design/science fiction relationship. Three case studies were used to further test the model: the work of industrial designer and visual futurist Syd Mead; science fiction author Bruce Sterling; and the industrial design and production design content of selected science fiction films. Analysis of an Internet discussion among industrial designers also illuminated the model. The findings from the analysis and the case studies supported the validity of the original hypotheses. The study identified as the key elements of an emerging theory the parallel ideas of innovation in industrial design and novum (the new thing) in science fiction; the cause and effect relationship found between the two disciplines; the parallel concepts of mediation and responsibility in industrial design, and anticipation and interrogation in science fiction. The theory was presented as a graphic model that demonstrated these elements. This study concludes that science fiction challenges the design profession to produce better design by requiring that social, political, and technological contexts in which products will exist are explicitly understood and addressed. This is mapped out in an emerging theory that outlines a complex, multi-layered relationship between industrialdesign and science fiction. In industrial design terms, this emerging theory could be considered a prototype.

Science fiction films may be viewed as existing as threads within a web, and at the same time constituting the web. The metaphor is apt: texts and contexts and their relationship have a difficult accommodation with each other, an interdependent and dynamic relationship. The text is a thread in the web, as are elements of context, yet the threads are in a symbiotic and constantly changing relationship with each other, as the web is constantly in a state of renewal and change. At the same time, the text itself is a web, as are the various contexts. The threads are both ephemeral and fleeting, while incredibly strong. This thesis is about the polysemy of science fiction film: its subject is the films of the fifties that belong to the genre of science fiction. But the area of study began as an investigation of the science in science fiction films; the way in which films construct that science, the end result of that construction and the totality of the discourse of science in relation to other discourses of power and influence. The investigation of those issues involves a multi-layered investigation into science fiction, in a similar way to Tulloch and Alvarado's approach to the Dr Who television series.1 Approaching science fiction films from a perspective of genre, as in chapter one, uncovers a set of arguments about the science in science fiction, as well as establishing the global nature of some science fiction. These concerns lead into the discussion in chapter two of the social and historical context of the fifties, specifically in the US. Science plays a major role in these contexts, in the sense of the importance of science in creating these contexts (from this perspective) as well as the effects of the application of this science. But the historical and cultural contexts tend to suggest that science fiction films are in large part both a response to the social and historical context, and also create that context. This would not be quite accurate: the production of many science fiction films mobilise other arguments, arguments relating to the industry of Hollywood, and the specific industrial context that gave rise to some very financially successful science fiction films, as well as some films where the budget was good for a few days filming. Science and technology are sometimes important elements in this industrial context as well. Part II traces the nature of science in these films, using the contexts in Part I to anchor the science and its implications and effects. Foregrounded is the debate in which science is both key player and, in many cases, antagonist. The debate is traced and the various representations of science and its nature are tracked and highlighted. Science can cause change, by virtue of its nature of uncovering superstition, but the worth or desirability of that change is open to question. The control of science is a related issue. The thesis examines science at a period that saw the efflorescence of science fiction films. The examination of those films tells us a great deal about the concerns of the time, as well as the science that figures so powerfully in the webs of culture of the fifties.

This thesis interrogates the interrelation between architecture and science fiction cinema to understand the fictional and representative power of architecture. Since cinema embraces both physical and representative aspects of architecture it is convenient to carry out the research through the mediation of cinema. To accomplish this goal science fiction genre is particularly chosen where architectural image can break its commonly acknowledged facet and can reconstruct to participate in the narrative. The architectural image is intended to be interpreted through the concept of city and architectural components in science fiction cinema. To create a mutual language, a world wide known city &amp / #8211 / New York City &amp / #8211 / is selected as the case study subject / that the research is developed upon. Initially the study is based on the discussion over cinema architecture relationship from an architect&amp / #8217 / s point of view. Subsequently architectural image in architecture and cinema is studied under several categories. Twenty four science fiction movies with various plots are chosen where all the movies are either located in New York City or in a fictional city inspired by it. By analyzing these movies through architectural concepts it is aimed to gain understanding to key points in architectural design.

This study reveals science fiction fan culture as it was observed during a science fiction convention in southern California in 2009. Conventions, although social gatherings, are also places where learning takes place, and the culture is shared. The researcher, a fan herself, collected demographic data through an anonymous survey, then interviewed several fans to develop information about their educational history, cultural attitudes, and interactions with text. The evidence presented shows this group identifies itself as a subculture with its own language, arts, values, and traditions. Fandom also exhibits many characteristics of an affinity group as described by Gee (2003), in that its members are united by a common cause, and hold similar attitudes toward knowledge acquisition and information sharing. After describing who science fiction fans are, this study explores the many types of texts with which fans interact, and the types of literacy they demonstrate by doing so. In addition to being proficient readers of traditional text, fans demonstrate strong visual, computer, and genre literacy skills. Fans use these skills to interact with multiple forms of media including books, movies, television, art, blogs, fan fiction, and video games, to name a few. Furthermore, fan interests are shown to span a variety of text types including mainstream literature and nonfiction, as well as other genres. Finally, the study discusses the implications some of its findings may have for education. Importantly, it appears that a free reading program (especially as described by Krashen in 1993), which encourages students to read what they choose, would be an efficacious method of motivating students to practice higher order thinking skills. Furthermore, students should be encouraged to interact with multiple types of texts across a variety of genre including, but not limited to, science fiction. This implies that students need access to a variety of reading material including classics, genre literature, comic books, and graphic novels. / Dr. Jeannine M. Fontaine Dr. Resa Crane Bizzaro Dr. Karen Hellekson

Texte remanié de: Dissertation--Erlangen, Nürnberg--Universität, 2006. / Bibligr. p. 308-322.

Posthuman representations in selected Hollywood and Hong Kong science fiction films show new interconnections in “techno-globalization.” They also exhibit a waning relationship between the “center” and the “margin” of technoculture. This study discusses the relation of technology, humanity, affect, and aesthetics in selective science fiction films produced from 1984 to 2010. The science fiction features were made in the United States and in Hong Kong. They include: The Terminator (1984), Terminator2 (1991), Terminator Salvation (2009), A.I. Artificial Intelligence (2002), I Love Maria (1988), Kung Fu Cyborg (2009) and Future X-Cops (2010). In particular, Kung Fu Cyborg merges the popular genre conventions of martial arts and technoculture, and manifests a different imagination at work wherein Hong Kong’s martial arts cinema stands in the place of a scientific-based Western technoculture absent in Hong Kong science fiction films. This study presents several key critical frames elaborated by scholars of science fiction who have assessed the recurrent themes and figures of science fiction films. The discussion of films identifies the resemblances, the differences, and the competitive dynamic between American science fiction films and Hong Kong action features. The absence of utopian or dystopian figures in posthuman filmic representations in Hong Kong cinema is considered an important difference from Western science fiction films. This thesis examines the figure of the cyborg and argues for the important place of emotions and the power to emote and hope as having a complex relationship to technology, humans and humanness. The compassionate cyborg has temporal and moral dimensions relating to belief and religion in this important genre. Thus, this thesis examines the backdrop for science fiction affect, which is one of oppression and crisis that speaks to the conditions of capitalism and modernity. The affective cyborgs make an important figure in the science fiction films that concern the crisis conditions, the appeal of technology, and the conventions of science fiction genre in commercial cinema. / published_or_final_version / Comparative Literature / Master / Master of Philosophy

No description available.

This thesis argues that the interface between human and machine has been an important system of metaphors since the beginning of the twentieth century in North American science fiction (SF) and nonfictional writings. In examining these texts, this study intends to discuss positions and responses regarding technological developments and the social and political experiences underlying it In my parallel analyses of fictional (SF) and nonfictional (philosophical, scientific, theoretical) texts. I wish to signal similarities and differences among the two fields. In different ways, the treatments of cyborgs and cyberspace in both nonfiction and SF have addressed, through these metaphors, notions of mass culture, democracy, as well as individual and collective agency and subjectivity. I also argue that these critical strategies are best understood as the strategies of two social groups---one, of them in a dominant position (that of a professional, mainly technocratic class) and one in an ambivalently marginal position (that of the readers of a mass genre such as SF). In nonfictional writings, the strategy is as a rule one of either uncritical embrace of the present state of affairs, or a specular one of utter rejection, with the only exceptions emerging from contemporary feminism. In SF, attitudes of both consensus and problematization emerge. Thus, my study also calls for a qualification of claims about "postmodernity" as the privileged period in which technology acquires center stage. My first two chapters foreground some theoretical concepts and issues related to both the study of mass culture and of the SF genre. The next three chapters focus on specific texts about the instrumental body and of the virtual frontier, and on the critical responses (by women, and by dissenting male figures) to them. The conclusion stresses the notions of democracy allegorically presented in these texts.

Univ., Diss--Düsseldorf, 2005.

Thèses (Ph.D.)--Université de Sherbrooke (Canada), 1999. / Titre de l'écran-titre (visionné le 20 juillet 2006). Publié aussi en version papier.