The Digital Dystopias of Black Mirror and Electric Dreams

The Digital Dystopias of Black Mirror and Electric Dreams PDF Author: Steven Keslowitz
Publisher: McFarland
ISBN: 1476678685
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 304

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Book Description
This critical examination of two dystopian television series--Black Mirror and Electric Dreams--focuses on pop culture depictions of technology and its impact on human existence. Representations of a wide range of modern and futuristic technologies are explored, from early portrayals of artificial intelligence (Rossum's Universal Robots, 1921) to digital consciousness transference as envisioned in Black Mirror's "San Junipero." These representations reflect societal anxieties about unfettered technological development and how a world infused with invasive artificial intelligence might redefine life and death, power and control. The impact of social media platforms is considered in the contexts of modern-day communication and political manipulation.

The Digital Dystopias of Black Mirror and Electric Dreams

The Digital Dystopias of Black Mirror and Electric Dreams PDF Author: Steven Keslowitz
Publisher: McFarland
ISBN: 1476678685
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 304

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Book Description
This critical examination of two dystopian television series--Black Mirror and Electric Dreams--focuses on pop culture depictions of technology and its impact on human existence. Representations of a wide range of modern and futuristic technologies are explored, from early portrayals of artificial intelligence (Rossum's Universal Robots, 1921) to digital consciousness transference as envisioned in Black Mirror's "San Junipero." These representations reflect societal anxieties about unfettered technological development and how a world infused with invasive artificial intelligence might redefine life and death, power and control. The impact of social media platforms is considered in the contexts of modern-day communication and political manipulation.

Dystopia on Demand: Technology, Digital Culture, and the Metamodern Quest in Complex Serial Dystopias

Dystopia on Demand: Technology, Digital Culture, and the Metamodern Quest in Complex Serial Dystopias PDF Author: Laura Winter
Publisher: Narr Francke Attempto Verlag
ISBN: 3381112228
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 362

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Book Description
Serial storytelling has the advantage of unlocking rather than simplifying the complexities of digital culture. With their worldbuilding potential, TV series open up new artistic horizons, particularly for the dystopian genre. Situated at the nexus of dystopia, complex TV, and a metamodern cultural logic, Dystopia on Demand: Technology, Digital Culture, and the Metamodern Quest in Complex Serial Dystopias offers readers novel insights into the dynamics of serial dystopias in the contemporary streaming landscape. Introducing the term 'complex serial dystopias' to describe series that allow audiences to engage with the dystopian premise from multiple angles, the book examines four Anglo-American series, including Black Mirror, Mr. Robot, Westworld, and Kiss Me First. The in-depth analyses trace the variety of ways in which these series offer critical reflections on the human-technology entanglement in digital culture.

The Outer Limits

The Outer Limits PDF Author: Joanne Morreale
Publisher: Wayne State University Press
ISBN: 0814347460
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 134

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Book Description
Provides a history and criticism of an important disrupting force in early science-fiction television programming. In this TV Milestone, author Joanne Morreale highlights the differences of The Outer Limits (ABC 1963–65) from typical programs on the air in the 1960s. Morreale argues that the show provides insight into changes in the television industry as writers turned to genre fiction—in this case, a hybrid of science fiction and horror—to provide veiled social commentary. The show illustrates the tension between networks who wanted mainstream entertainment and the independent writer-producers, Leslie Stevens and Joseph Stefano, who wanted to use the medium to challenge viewers. In five chapters, The Outer Limitsmakes a case for the show's deployment of gothic melodrama and science fiction tropes, unique televisual characteristics, and creative adaptation of many cultural sources to interrogate the relationship between humans and technology in a way that continues to influence contemporary debate in such shows as Star Trek, The X-Files, and Black Mirror. Underlying the arguments is the eerie notion of The Outer Limitsas a disruptive force on television at the time, purposely making audiences uncomfortable. For example, in its iconic opening credit sequence a disembodied "Control Voice" claims to be taking over the television as images mimic signal interference. Other themes convey Cold War paranoia, ambivalence about the Kennedy era "New Frontier," and anxiety about the burgeoning military-industrial-governmental complex. The book points out that The Outer Limits presaged what came to be known as "quality" television. While most episodes followed the lowbrow tradition of televised science fiction by adapting previously published stories and films, the series elevated the genre by rearticulating it through themes and images drawn from myth, literature, and the art film. The Outer Limits is lucid yet accessible, well researched and argued, with enlightening discussions of specific episodes even as it gives attention to broader television history and theory. It will be of special interest to scholars and students of television and media studies, as well as fans of science fiction.

Strange City Digest (Spring 2020)

Strange City Digest (Spring 2020) PDF Author: Adam Dodd
Publisher: Lulu.com
ISBN: 167801852X
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 72

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Book Description
For creators, by creators... A showcase for the creative and the strange. An anthology collection of independent writers and artists that features original short form fiction and poetry, illustrations from around the world, interviews, indie comic book previews, film previews, exclusive book excerpts, humor, puzzles.

Why You Better Call Saul

Why You Better Call Saul PDF Author: Steven Keslowitz
Publisher: QuillPop Books
ISBN: 0998895121
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 228

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Book Description
Better Call Saul chronicles the transformation of a decent, likable guy named Jimmy McGill into Saul Goodman, the morally bankrupt lawyer we met on Breaking Bad. Captivating and funny, the show provides far more than a few binge-watched hours of entertainment, raising questions about the legal system and human nature itself. Why You Better Call Saul: What Our Favorite TV Lawyer Says About Life, Love, and Scheming Your Way to Acquittal and a Large Cash Payout examines the many faces of our favorite fictional lawyer, as well as other characters in the Breaking Bad/Better Call Saul universe: ls Saul Goodman a persona that Jimmy invents to attract a particular kind of client, or does he reflect Jimmy's true self? To what extent does Jimmy/Saul bend - or break - the rules to which attorneys are bound?What do Jimmy McGill and Mike Ehrmantraut have in common with Dexter Morgan? What do Jimmy's most important relationships teach us about the effect of outside influences on one's psyche? How do Saul Goodman and Walter White break free of societal constraints? How does Saul manipulate the media in order to promote his legal services? Is he defined by his tacky advertisements? And much more ... About the Author STEVEN KESLOWITZ is a practicing attorney and pop culture expert. He is the author of three other books - The World According to the Simpsons, The Tao of Jack Bauer, and From Poland to Brooklyn -- and several journal articles focused on the intersection of law and pop culture. Please visit his website at StevenKeslowitz.com

Deleted Dreams

Deleted Dreams PDF Author: Ren Ellis
Publisher: Port of Planets Publishing
ISBN: 1734918608
Category : Young Adult Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 161

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Book Description
"The boundless imagination is reminiscent of anime masterpieces, while the writing has glimpses of true brilliance, reaching the magical tone of Murakami... A story exploring timeless themes in a hyper-specific 'other' world makes for very good reading, and Ellis' bubbling creativity is a marvelous thing to savor." - The Independent Review of Books A Readers' Favorite 5-Star Novel No one in Silver City dreams. If she could, Derra would dream of the day she joins the city's elite in the Ring of Radiance. Only then can she hope to gain her family's acceptance, the job that she strives for, and be Matched to the best friend she loves. And only in the Ring of Radiance will she be free to feel without penalty or pain. Until then, she must conceal such feelings and the unique ability that sets her apart: Derra can see someone's thoughts with the touch of her hand. When the city's chief scientist seeks to exploit Derra's power, Derra gets the chance to live the life she yearns for. All she must do is protect the system responsible for deleting dreams. But the people's dreams reveal a longing for life beyond what Silver City offers, and Derra's dreams unveil the dangers posed by her desires. Will she risk the life she has fought for in order to set these dreams free?

The Mirror and the Palette

The Mirror and the Palette PDF Author: Jennifer Higgie
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1643138049
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 248

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Book Description
A dazzlingly original and ambitious book on the history of female self-portraiture by one of today's most well-respected art critics. Her story weaves in and out of time and place. She's Frida Kahlo, Loïs Mailou Jones and Amrita Sher-Gil en route to Mexico City, Paris or Bombay. She's Suzanne Valadon and Gwen John, craving city lights, the sea and solitude; she's Artemisia Gentileschi striding through the streets of Naples and Paula Modersohn-Becker in Worpswede. She's haunting museums in her paint-stained dress, scrutinising how El Greco or Titian or Van Dyck or Cézanne solved the problems that she too is facing. She's railing against her corsets, her chaperones, her husband and her brothers; she's hammering on doors, dreaming in her bedroom, working day and night in her studio. Despite the immense hurdles that have been placed in her way, she sits at her easel, picks up a mirror and paints a self-portrait because, as a subject, she is always available. Until the twentieth century, art history was, in the main, written by white men who tended to write about other white men. The idea that women in the West have always made art was rarely cited as a possibility. Yet they have - and, of course, continue to do so - often against tremendous odds, from laws and religion to the pressures of family and public disapproval. In The Mirror and the Palette, Jennifer Higgie introduces us to a cross-section of women artists who embody the fact that there is more than one way to understand our planet, more than one way to live in it and more than one way to make art about it. Spanning 500 years, biography and cultural history intertwine in a narrative packed with tales of rebellion, adventure, revolution, travel and tragedy enacted by women who turned their back on convention and lived lives of great resilience, creativity and bravery.

The World According to the Simpsons

The World According to the Simpsons PDF Author: Steven Keslowitz
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Humor
Languages : en
Pages : 328

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Book Description
This entertaining and informative book is a fun and intelligent look at how our society is reflected in the hit TV show The Simpsons, and how The Simpsons is reflected in society.

Terminal Boredom

Terminal Boredom PDF Author: Izumi Suzuki
Publisher: Verso Books
ISBN: 1788739892
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 205

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Book Description
On a planet where men are contained in ghettoised isolation, women enjoy the fruits of a queer matriarchal utopia -- until a boy escapes and a young woman's perception of the world is violently interupted. Two old friends enjoy cocktails on a holiday resort planet where all is not as it seems. A bickering couple emigrate to a world that has worked out an innovative way to side-step the need for war, only to bring their quarrels (and something far more destructive) with them. And in the title story, Suzuki offers readers a tragic and warped mirroring of her own final days as the tyranny of enforced screen-time and the mechanistion of labour bring about a shattering psychic collapse. At turns nonchalantly hip and charmingly deranged, Suzuki's singular slant on speculative fiction would be echoed in countless later works, from Margaret Atwood and Harumi Murakami, to Black Mirror and Ex Machina. In these darkly playful and punky stories, the fantastical elements are always earthed by the universal pettiness of strife between the sexes, and the gritty reality of life on the lower rungs, whatever planet that ladder might be on.

Inside Black Mirror

Inside Black Mirror PDF Author: Charlie Brooker
Publisher: Crown Archetype
ISBN: 1984823485
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 322

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Book Description
The first official companion to the Emmy-winning Netflix cult-hit sci-fi television series that's fascinated millions of fans worldwide, with stunning visuals and never before seen behind-the-scenes content What becomes of humanity when it's fed into the jaws of a hungry new digital machine? Discover the world of Black Mirror in this immersive, illustrated, oral history. This first official book logs the entire Black Mirror journey, from its origins in creator Charlie Brooker's mind to its current status as one of the biggest cult TV shows to emerge from the UK. Alongside a collection of astonishing behind-the-scenes imagery and ephemera, Brooker and producer Annabel Jones will detail the creative genesis, inspiration, and thought process behind each film for the first time, while key actors, directors and other creative talents relive their own involvement.