Abstract
Our future effects on the earth, in light of the Anthropocene, are all dire expressions of a depleted world left in piles of detritus and toxic ruin—including the diminished human as an assemblage of impoverished existence, yet adumbrating that handicapped existence with an ersatz advanced technology. In the cyberpunk films, these expressions are primarily visual expressions—whether through written prose thick with densely dark adjectives describing the world of cyberpunk, or more widely known, the comic books and films of cyberpunk, whose representations have become classically understood as SF canon. The new films of the cyberpunk redux however, represent an evolution in cyberpunk visuality. Despite these debatable issues around this term, it will provide this paper with its primary object of visuality, that of the “rich sight”, a further term that arose from the allure created in the late 19th century development of department stores that innovated the display of the goods laid out in a spectacular view, presenting the shopper with a fantasy of wealth and fetishized objects which excited shoppers to purchase, but more paradoxically, creating the desire to see a fantasy that was at the same time also a reality. This particular and enframed view—so deeply embedded and beloved in our commodity-obsessed culture—is what I suggest so profoundly typifies the initial cyberpunk postmodern representation in the Blade Runner films, and its continuing popularity in the early part of the 21st century. Both films are influenced by Ridley Scott’s initial vision of the cinematic cyberpunk universe and organized as sequential narratives. Consequently, they serve as excellent examples of the evolution of this visual spectacular.
Highlights
Through the Lens of the AnthropoceneHow urban squalor can be a delight to the eyes, when expressed in commodification, and how an unparalleled quantum leap in the alienation of daily life in the city can be experienced in the form of strange new hallucinatory exhilaration—these are some of the questions that confront us.Frederic Jameson (1984)“Postmodernism or the Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism”When Frederic Jameson asks how “urban squalor can be a delight to the eyes, when expressed in commodification, and how an unparalleled quantum leap in the alienation of daily life in the city can be experienced in the form of strange new hallucinatory exhilaration,” it provokes the two most ironic observations about the cyberpunk aesthetic, both and in its initial flowering in the 1980s to 1990s
Arts 2018, 7, 38 world left in piles of abandoned and useless commodities as detritus and toxic ruin—including the diminished human as an impoverished existence, despite the adumbration of that handicapped existence with an ersatz advanced technology
To consider how to answer Jameson’s questions of how urban squalor can delight the eyes, as an alienation from daily life, and as an escape from the realities of quotidian existence; an examination of two different, but related works of the cyberpunk film series: that of Blade Runner (Final Cut) and Blade Runner 2049 will reveal through two considerations of visual perspective how possible outcomes of both the Anthropocene and the Age of Asymmetry might emerge
Summary
How urban squalor can be a delight to the eyes, when expressed in commodification, and how an unparalleled quantum leap in the alienation of daily life in the city can be experienced in the form of strange new hallucinatory exhilaration—these are some of the questions that confront us. To consider how to answer Jameson’s questions of how urban squalor can delight the eyes, as an alienation from daily life, and as an escape from the realities of quotidian existence; an examination of two different, but related works of the cyberpunk film series: that of Blade Runner (Final Cut) ( on Blade Runner) and Blade Runner 2049 will reveal through two considerations of visual perspective how possible outcomes of both the Anthropocene and the Age of Asymmetry might emerge In a sense, these films address the authority of our own greed and profoundly ever-continuing complicity in the termination of all life on Earth, and yet how in each film, a visual richness might allow for a certain mediation of that acknowledgment through the potential insights displayed by both films
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