Popular Cultures
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Week 2 moves to more future-focused visions of technology and education, and explores what might happen through the utopian and dystopian visions.
The assignments for week 2 include watching five films, and answering questions.
Here are the questions for us to answer after watching the first two video advertisements --one from Corning, and the other from Microsoft:
• How is education being visualised here? What is being learned and taught?
• What is the nature of communication in these future worlds?
• Are these utopian or dystopian visions to you? In what way(s)?
The following are my answers:
Both A Day Made of Glass 2, a video advertisement from Corning, and Productivity Future Vision (2011), another video advertisement from Microsoft, show us how future information technologies can change every aspect of our lives for the better.
In these advertisements, education is being visualized as mobile learning, everything and everywhere is wired with information at your fingertips. The nature of communication in these future worlds would be infinitely varied and anything imaginable. These are utopian visions to me because these future technologies would give people incredible convenience, productivity and pleasure in daily life.
Here are my thoughts and answers to the questions about the other three films:
In the film Sight, the two main characters seem to have built-in apps, and they are like robots that are programmed. Their eyes look like built-in sensors that can detect what is in their surroundings, and their brains can gauge their interactions accordingly. The initial “warm” attraction between the characters was later replaced by the “cold” programmed reactions. This film helps us imagine the dystopian view of what technologies can do to humans in the future, while the first two commercial films A Day Made of Glass 2 and Productivity Future Vision (2011) show the utopian view of the advantages of future technologies.
The film Charlie 13 shows the courage of a teenager who wants freedom and tries to escape from the depressing society where everybody including birds and other moving beings are permanently “tagged” by having a tracking device implanted in their bodies. “Eyes are everywhere” – all moving beings are closely watched. This is a dystopian view of future technologies that control the freedom of human beings. In my opinion, Charlie 13 and the resistance he represents show a hopeful future when humans enjoy freedom and are still in control of technologies.
The film Plurality predicts the dystopian view of the future when humans are monitored through their DNA by the grid system. The losses of freedom and privacy are inevitable. I would rather find myself in Charlie’s society where I would not be controlled by the grid system that monitors every cell of me.
Week 2 moves to more future-focused visions of technology and education, and explores what might happen through the utopian and dystopian visions.
The assignments for week 2 include watching five films, and answering questions.
Here are the questions for us to answer after watching the first two video advertisements --one from Corning, and the other from Microsoft:
• How is education being visualised here? What is being learned and taught?
• What is the nature of communication in these future worlds?
• Are these utopian or dystopian visions to you? In what way(s)?
The following are my answers:
Both A Day Made of Glass 2, a video advertisement from Corning, and Productivity Future Vision (2011), another video advertisement from Microsoft, show us how future information technologies can change every aspect of our lives for the better.
In these advertisements, education is being visualized as mobile learning, everything and everywhere is wired with information at your fingertips. The nature of communication in these future worlds would be infinitely varied and anything imaginable. These are utopian visions to me because these future technologies would give people incredible convenience, productivity and pleasure in daily life.
Here are my thoughts and answers to the questions about the other three films:
In the film Sight, the two main characters seem to have built-in apps, and they are like robots that are programmed. Their eyes look like built-in sensors that can detect what is in their surroundings, and their brains can gauge their interactions accordingly. The initial “warm” attraction between the characters was later replaced by the “cold” programmed reactions. This film helps us imagine the dystopian view of what technologies can do to humans in the future, while the first two commercial films A Day Made of Glass 2 and Productivity Future Vision (2011) show the utopian view of the advantages of future technologies.
The film Charlie 13 shows the courage of a teenager who wants freedom and tries to escape from the depressing society where everybody including birds and other moving beings are permanently “tagged” by having a tracking device implanted in their bodies. “Eyes are everywhere” – all moving beings are closely watched. This is a dystopian view of future technologies that control the freedom of human beings. In my opinion, Charlie 13 and the resistance he represents show a hopeful future when humans enjoy freedom and are still in control of technologies.
The film Plurality predicts the dystopian view of the future when humans are monitored through their DNA by the grid system. The losses of freedom and privacy are inevitable. I would rather find myself in Charlie’s society where I would not be controlled by the grid system that monitors every cell of me.