09.08 // INTRODUCTION
Overview, policies, requirements, and course structure. Enrollment logistics and questionnaire.
Why science/speculative fiction? Why “Future Lives”?
09.11 // Introductory screenings & discussion
Past FUTURE LIVES
Technological progress has merely provided us with more efficient means for going backwards.
~ Aldous Huxley
09.15 // IN THE BEGINNING…
Frankenstein by Mary Shelley (1818) – recommended // novel
e Voyage dans la Lune (A Trip to the Moon) by Georges Méliès (1902) // film
Metropolis by Fritz Lang (1929) // film
The Heat Death of the Universe by Pamela Zoline (1967) // short story
The Star by Arthur C. Clarke (1955) // short story
equipment, production management, & granoff policies
{Exercise 1} Briefly describe 5 different futures in which life as we know it is drastically altered. A paragraph for each future is fine. Feel free to explore both possible and impossible futures. Utopias, dystopias, parallel, absurd, scientifically precise, irrational, mystical, critical, subtle, epic, etc.
09.18 {SCREENING} Alphaville by Godard
The Politics of Pre-political Godard by Ryan Babula (optional)
Alphaville and the Age of Resistance by Prabarna Ganguly
09.22 // THE NEXT GENERATION…
Nine Lives by Ursula K. Le Guin (1969) – Short Story – link / Wesleyan Anthology
Aye, and Gomorrah… by Samuel Delany (1967) – Short Story – pdf / Wesleyan Anthology
When It Changed by Joanna Russ (1972) – Short Story
Jodorowsky’s Dune by Frank Pavich (2013) – Film (optional)
{Exercise 2} Translate one of your future scenarios into another (non linguistic or differently linguistic) medium. ‘Faking’ is acceptable, probably even necessary. The goal is to explore the speculative possibilities of a medium you are comfortable working within.
VIRTUAL LIVES
Cyberspace. A consensual hallucination experienced daily by billions of legitimate operators, in every nation. ~ William Gibson, Neuromancer
09.25 // Exercise 2 Discussion / Intro to MMORGs
09.29 // AVATARS // CYBERSPACE
Neuromancer by William Gibson (1984) or Red Spider White Web (1999) by Misha – novels
Pretty Boy Crossover by Pat Cadigan (1986) – short story
{Exercise 3} Research and join a massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) that you will play with/in for the next 3+ weeks. Choose from the list of games (see link), or propose a game/virtual community/networked social situation not on the list. Be ready to discuss the reasons for choosing your game and any tactics or methods you are planning to employ.
10.02 {SCREENING} 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)
The Sentinel by Arthur C. Clark (1948)
10.06 // LIFE IN A CAVE
Tour of the CAVE (Computer Assisted Virtual Environment) with John Cayley.
Discuss 2001: A Space Odyssey
10.09 // Oculus Workshop
10.13 // NO CLASS
10.16 // Attend Chris Novello talk at the Design Office
AUGMENTED LIVES
It’s the real world—only better ~ Qualcomm
Our machines are disturbingly lively, and we ourselves frighteningly inert. ~ Haraway
10.20 // CYBORGS
{Exercise 4} Create documentation of/about/around your virtual life in a time-based medium—no more than 5 minutes long. The content, style, and complexity is entirely up to you. Film, machinima, audio, comic, play, reading, game are all acceptable outputs.
The Allegory of the Cave by Plato (recommended)
Body Ritual Among the Nacirema (recommended)
Einstein Intersection by Samuel Delany – novel
10.23 Conversation with Chris Novello
10.27 // SILICON VALLEY
final project proposals due
The Story of Your Life (2000) by Ted Chiang
Watch Pumzi (2010) by Wanuri Kahiu
10.30 {SCREENING} Music/videos by Sun Ra, P-Funk, David Bowie, Daft Punk, Janelle Monáe
11.03 // IMAGES OF THE FUTURE
“Understand” and “The Evolution of Human Science” by Ted Chiang
The images and mythologies of Rammellzee, Moebius, Wangechi Mutu
ARTIFICIAL LIVES
I’m sorry Dave. I’m afraid I can’t do that. ~ HAL
The Sublimely Affective “Effect”: The alien spaceship not as wonderfully functional, but as functionally wonderful—a merry-go-round of light, color, and music. ~ Vivian Sobchack
11.06 {work session}
11.10 // CYBORGS
Visit and Conversation with BrainGate researchers
Bladerunner (1982) – film
“Cyborgs at Large” an interview with Donna Haraway (recommended)
11.13 {Project Due}
Using the Granoff Center as your site, make a piece that reimagines, confronts, plays with, amplifies, accelerates, or reframes a current mythology. Let’s broadly define mythology as “a way in which customs, histories, or natures are explained”. If stuck, think about the way Delany rewrites myths (define myth as “mythology in story/narrative form”) to point to strange, arbitrary, and repetitive (innate?) aspects of human culture. As always, your intervention does not need to be literal or direct (it can be!) but think about the those systems, protocols, engagements that we take for granted, and see if you can twist them a bit.
11.17 // Collective Intelligence
Guest : Ed Osborn
The Last Question by Isaac Asimov – short story
“I, Borg” Star Trek: The Next Generation (1992) – tv episode
The Lifecycle of Software Objects (2010) by Ted Chiang – novella
PARELLEL / ALTERNATIVE LIVES
Science fiction isn’t just thinking about the world out there. It’s also thinking about how that world might be—a particularly important exercise for those who are oppressed, because if they’re going to change the world we live in, they—and all of us—have to be able to think about a world that works differently. ~ Delany
11.20 {SCREENING} The Holy Mountain by Alejandro Jodorowsky or Alien (1979) by Ridley Scott
11.24 // CONVERSATION: Hunter Hargraves on “Communality and Queer Futurisms”
You will find the readings and contexts here
Selected Stories by Octavia Butler
The Faggots & their Friends between Revolutions by Larry Mitchell & Ned Asta