Abstract
Films can be seen as cultural projections of technoscientific futures. The ways that technoscience is represented in films may shape the way we perceive future innovations and the social implications of such developments. Films can thus serve as documents to study cultural perceptions of the future. This paper explores how visions of future technoscientific worlds are enacted in films by analyzing exemplary short movies that were created for the first science film festival organized with support of the German federal government within the scope of its “foresight process.” By applying methods from qualitative social research, this paper discusses how the selected films represent the roles of both humans and technoscience in future worlds. Although these films each display different visions of such roles, the analysis shows that they all address the importance of technoscience in future lives and imagine that humans embrace an active role as (self-) entrepreneurs and political subjects within future technoscientific worlds.
Highlights
Science and technology have been of long-term interest to filmmakers, and scientists have used films to disseminate their work ever since film cameras have been available
By analyzing three short films that were shown at a science film festival, I explore ways that forthcoming technoscientific realities are constructed via cinematographic means
This article asks how technoscientific futures are imagined in the three films that were selected from a film festival dedicated to foresight
Summary
Science and technology have been of long-term interest to filmmakers, and scientists have used films to disseminate their work ever since film cameras have been available. By analyzing three short films that were shown at a science film festival, I explore ways that forthcoming technoscientific realities are constructed via cinematographic means. This perspective remains underexplored in STS and science communication literature, this article may serve as part of a larger project to study and assess cultural visions and imaginaries of science and technology [19,20,21]. In order to facilitate the production of short films, the festival organizers offered free participation in the science2movie-Academy, which was targeted mainly to students In this academy, students were coached and supported by experienced filmmakers and media experts.
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