This film club is premised on the idea that key emerging technologies will be largely premised on modulation of cognitive state space - chemical and affective protocols directed either to control and compliance or to freedom and empirical openness.
open protocols
control protocols
[simple crisp diagram]
Following from this premise, we will view and discuss films as dramas of cognitive-technical mediation. We will identify protagonists and explore how they make use of mediation devices, including digital, social and psychotechnologies (e.g. narrative, cosmology, hyperstition). What is the cognitive state of the actors involved? Is the protagonist making use of these mediation devices agentially, or is she subject to them?
The film bank may include:
Tetsuo the Iron Man (1989)
Enter the Void (2009)
Skinamarink (2022)
Annihilation (2018)
Brazil (1985)
Tenet (2020)
Inception (2010)
Edward scissorhands (1990)
Arrival (2016)
Paprika (2006)
Solaris (1972)
Vortex (2021)
A Scanner Darkly (2006)
Sorry to Bother You (2018)
The Matrix (1999)
Alice in wonderland (2010)
Atlantics (2019)
Upstream color (2013)
Neptune Frost (2021)
Blade runner 2049 (2017)
Alphaville (1965)
Bugonia (2025)
Battle Royale (2000)
Space is the Place (1974)
Possession (1981)
The Witch (2015)
Holy Motors (2012)
A Field in England (2013)
Moon (2009)
Her (2013)
The Lighthouse (2019)
Mad Max Fury Road (2015)
Existenz (1999)
Evilspeak (1981)
Strange Days (1995)
**