week 9

Critical Practice

Rosetta Brooks

Dunhuang Chen

0244729

                           Cyborg Punk

Blade runner is a 1982 America science fiction film directed by Ridley Scott (my favorite film directer). The film reveal a dystopian city(LA) and many engineered replicants are living here, which are visually indistinguishable from natural humans, they are manufactured by the powerful Tyrell Corporation. Most of them are treated as low worker and they are utilized for dangerous or low-down work on colonies. Replicants who challenge the authorities and return to Earth are hunted down and eliminated by special force operatives known as “blade runners”. The story begins with a small group of recently-escaped replicants led by Roy Batty, and a member of blade runners-Rick Deckard, who unwillingly agree to hunt them down. During the investigations, Deckard begins a relationship with a female replicant-Rachael, and she causes him to question his and relicants` humanity.

It is no doubt that the movie blade runner is one of the greatest Si-fi movie because it generally create some typical concepts and elements as the foundation of post-Sci fi movies, such as cyborg punk, humanized robot, high tech and poor people are living in the dark filthy environment and so on. Actually, the "blade runner" is adapted from Philip k. Dick wrote in 1968 of science fiction "Do Androids Dream of electric Sheep?".Since the advent of this film, the number of robot, clone movies is increased dramatically, the personified robot, political clones became the common elements in science fiction movies.Whether after the ghost in the shell, or the matrix trilogy, this kind of "cyber punk" dystopian films are all about eternal conflict between human and man made machines.

The film blade runner talked an extremely essential question, what is life and this topic is seriously and deeply discussed which There are three major aspect of theme of life is involved- the meanings and value if life, the origin of life and the performance of life. In the film, the replicants have shorted life span so that they have to go back to Earth to prolong it. In the meantime, they cannot treated as human because they are initially created as slaves. However in addition to their short life span, their other attributes like physical power, intelligence and so on are further better than natural humans. They clearly like natural human, has the independent personality, has a more extensive knowledge. if the meaning of life is to experience, that they obviously have the better opportunity to realize the meaning of life than the real human , they do have the right to let themselves become human!

The film itself offers a very interesting map: human is the human because of gifted life, human created replicant. Human and the repicant are like father and son.  Therefore, is Naturalism an evolution or a morality undone. Who are real “ human” and how do we define “human”.  Moreover, this film focus on telling dead and live, for example, a female replicant is struggling intensely before dying. Audience here witness the pain of dying life, which makes replicant more human because she shows a powerful will of seeking for life. Also, the movie blade runner is telling a simple and classical story. Which is asking a question-what is humanity, how do we define humanity. When there is a such thing, it seems to be a human. They behave and act like human, so should we address them human? Rachael asks a question to Rick. Have you ever killed real people wrongly as relicants? Have you ever checked yourself if you are not a human? The answer to both questions, is the ultimate proposition which is related to human final destiny. Personally, the self-awareness and emotions plays vital rule in determining a thing that is a machine or a human but not the materials of what it is made of or what does it look like. For example, the robot in the movie Ex Machina is almost a human because she knows how to revenge and how to deceive real humans. Act and react makes she a real human.

I have to admit that being a machine sometimes is reasonable and rational. I have still remembered a teacher told me on class from the Artcenter that you have to become a robot after you graduate because robot never make mistakes! Our professional life and expertise requires us to be a perfect machine which is super reliable and accountable. For example, soldiers lawyers, doctors and politicians must fulfill their obligations and do duties without mistakes by following orders and procedure very carefully. Which means you have to become a machine to do right things and you want to avoid chaos. What is more, being a machine is a safe way to through crisis, law and order remind us who we are. The hell will befall us when we got chaos, just like what happened during the Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans in 2005.

Unfortunately, It is true that most of out life is more and more computerized in order to fit in the system of modern society. we have to act like robot so that the entire society could keep running perfectly without errors. There is no room for mistakes. However, when we are proud of great systems we created and in the meantime, we become slaves of our systems and our emotions and the ways of thinking are also being shaped by it gradually, which makes us more inhumane, such as bureaucratic system is everywhere and every second of our life is scheduled just like a clock. We created the system and become a part of it finally. That is not the future I am expecting.

week 8

Critical Practice

Rosetta Brooks

Dunhuang Chen

0244729

At the beginning, a man called Cooper, a wandered young man that is trying to run from the problem at home, and traveling the world. No body knows that what happened to him and what`s the problem at home. All we know is that he has some unpleasant experience with his parents. He is avoiding them actively. At the last stop of his tripe. while in London, he meets a girl and they falling love with each other(I don`t know). The Sonja is hoping Copper to tell her what happened to him and start trying to convince Cooper to call his mother back.

And eventually we start to learn that Cooper had stayed home to care for his father who eventually died of disease. A tragic story between a father and a son. And Cooper considered his father his best friend. But that he did not want to talk to his mother. So he left the house, and began traveling around the world in a way to avoid the pain of the past.

Now, the main story begins, we know that Copper has been suffering from lost of father and a realistic situation that defines Cooper’s character. At the beginning of this story, Cooper needs money and so he goes and volunteered to be a tester for a software development company. Apparently, this company has is very special that they are running everything secretly. Soon Cooper learns that their new software has to do with Virtual Reality that is worked through a special devise at the base of neck. The implant allows the software to interact directly with the brain and simulate.

During the progresses, Cooper starts to see the real marvelous and possibilities here. The game begins with a stupid one called Bop-the-Mole, to realism unparalleled in Virtual Reality. The real magic happens when they take Cooper to a mansion and keep him in and tell him his safe word, and then let him know that it’s going to get horrible real fast. But quickly Cooper is got bored seriously. Until he witness a huge spider and a childhood friend enters the scene. And however, he sees through all that and he realizes that the hologram is unable to touch him and unable to harm him in anyway… and so Cooper continues to proceed through the simulation without much worry or concern.

Sonja arrives at the door that is a big turning point. And she is full of conspiracy theories that makes Cooper confused and starting to get stressed out. After he believes that this test could really make him harmed, Cooper begins freaking out. He is out of control. The spider gets bigger and suddenly, Cooper is stabbed in the back. He feels the pain and then wake up somehow after he is screaming a while. Nothing really happened. He decides to quite the game with extremely panic. And when he is told to walk into a specific room to allow him to exit – the nightmare ends however then we realize that they are all in his head. But then operator extract him out of the game. We are confirmed that Cooper left game for good. The game designers ask his forgiveness and allow him to head out. Cooper then went back to the home to see his mother. But his mother is acting weird . She is waiting for answer the phone from his son. Finally tit turns out he is just in another layer of the game. And we learn when Cooper’s cellphone goes off that he had only been in the game for a total of .04 seconds. The cell signal completely interrupted the game and fritted Cooper’s brain completely. And now he is dead.

Obviously, this episode has messed up audiences` and Coppers`s cognition several times. Firstly, we and Copper are in a white room and Copper plays Bop-the-Mole, the game is hyper reality to Cooper, audience thought they are in reality. Secondly, Cooper is in the office and got plug in second time. We and Cooper thought we are still in reality. Then the operator leads Copper to a old house, we all believed that we and Copper are in reality, all the environments are real. Now we Copper encounters spiders and school friend but we see nothings via monitor. Therefore those spiders and man are hyper reality to Cooper, we thought that audience are still in reality. Then shown up of Sonja and then she is fighting with Copper make Copper believes that she is reality. But we are uncertain so this is argument reality. Then Sonja disappears indicate that the Sonja is still hyper reality to Copper from audience view. We thought that we and Copper are back to reality when Copper got second floor and being extracted by operators. Then Copper is wake up in the office, that tells he never left the office and all happened before in the old house is fake. He left that company and got back to home. We believe that we and Cooper are in real reality this time. Then, he is dead in white room because of interrupting by a phone. We are finally confirmed that he never left the white room. The layers are: they staying in the White Room is in Reality, the Office part is Layer One, the creepy House is Layer Two Game 1, back to Home is Layer Three Game 2. He went into layer one first and then goes into layer two to play the first game and then comes back out into layer one, slips into layer 3 for game 2 and then dies in reality.

week 7

Critical Practice

Dunhuang Chen

0244729

“This is your last chance. After this, there is no turning back. You take the blue pill - the story ends, you wake up in your bed and believe whatever you want to believe. You take the red pill - you stay in Wonderland and I show you how deep the rabbit-hole goes.” 

Morpheus gave Neo two pills-the blue and the red then told him this sentence, then Neo picked the red one and wake up from the “real” world. Later, Neo learned the true story about the “new” world: the rest of people who survived the war between human and robots has been living in the underground sewer system for centuries.

What is ironic that this quote is a mirror of the actual world we living in. It reflects the real situation that when we wake up in the morning and we hear and see countless news from news paper, TV, networks, radios, etc everyday. People are drowned by tons of information and cannot escape from that. The serious question is that how much information is true. Imagine that our exist is a building and it is made of those information we received every seconds, the more information we will take in, the more stronger this building will be, which means the more rich and fancy our livelihood could be. What if someday you have realized that all the information around you is not true which makes this building fake. It turns out that we have been living in a castle in the air since we are born. our life means nothings!

Of course our life is not full of lies actually, it is just not the one we think it should be. The one of most famous anti-utopia novel- Brave New World by Aldous Huxley was a true portrayal of what future looks like, it is pretty much like Matrix. people were divided by caste system even before they were born and tanking inoculation while they were sleeping. The emotion has been eliminated therefore the entire world is extremely ordered and organized. everyone has a easy and comfortable life. The manger used conditioning, hypnosis, and physiological sleep therapy to manipulate other people, to control and shape their interests, humanity and morality, values. Making people to fit in their determined fate without question. Only few people felt something wrong with reality and revolted  for seeking truth, to fought against the authorities, and the story ends badly.

Also, another famous anti-utopia novel-Amusing Ourselves to Death by Neil Postman has talked about our modern society`s problem; entire society public discourse is appeared in the form of entertainment and our political, religious, news, sports, education and business are willing ti become subservient to the entertainment. The reason why I mentioned this book, is that we think that our life is beautiful and abundant because there are so much entertainments such as movies, cartoons, sports, news. These things are filled with our life so that we forget who we really are and what the real feature is behind illusions. And we will be consumed by what we love finally. The Neo has chosen the red pill because the red pill represent the truth no matter how ugly the truth is. and how dark the reality is. ( it is so hard to believe that the former US Secretary of State has an affair with terrorist? ).

In the end, the moment of movie here remind me of another novel by Chinese writer Lu Xun, it is called A Madman`s Diary. There is a interesting story that has been told, many people are sleeping in a dark iron room, suddenly a man wakes up and realizes there is no lights by his said. He is scared and trying to wake up others. However others are refuse to wake up because the dream is so beautiful. No body knows how many people are willing to swallow the red pill or got nerve to do it.