Architecture representation in in sci-fi novels and movies

Digital tools offer new ways and new rules to design space creating new dimensions to explore. Thus,

physical limitations were no longer an issue in the design of space. In fact, this new level of freedom was

introduced with the advent of the digital age.

Architecture representation in in sci-fi novels and movies.

Since the early 1900s, many movies portrayed future societies in the age of information technology.

Cinema provided an imaginable world, crossing the borders of reality and immersing people in an

artificially created reality, which seem real although it’s only a technological simulation. Films such as

Fritz Lang's Metropolis (1926) envisioned the potential of digital instruments, providing spectators with a

window that enabled them to observe in motion a new futuristic dystopian urban world. Fifty years later,

other movies like Alien (1979) and Blade Runner (1982) supplied audiences with hypothetical future

portrayals of postmodern space as a hyper-real alternative for reality. The cyberpunk film Blade Runner,

directed by Ridley Scott and written by sci-fi writer Philip K. Dick, with artwork by Syd Mead,

demonstrated how technology carries architecture, not only inside the movie's plot but also in the

movies' production.

Figure 10Fritz Lang’s Metropolis (1926) and the artwork of Syd Mead for Blade Runner (1982)

The concept of cyberspace was largely introduced in 1984 in William Gibson’s novel “Neuromancer”.

“Cyberspace, a consensual hallucination experienced daily by billions of legitimate operators, in

every nation…. A graphic representation of data abstracted from the banks of every computer in the human system. Unthinkable complexity. Lines of light ranged in the nonspace of the mind,

clusters and constellations of data. Like city lights, receding….” (Gibson, W, 1984)

In the novel, the digital space was represented as an abstract landscape characterised by light and color

and conceptualised with a dimension of data communication and exchange. Gibson pointed out the

importance of multimedia approach (text, data, animation, video, etc.) in visionary space

representation.

“Multimedia, in my view, is not an invention but an ongoing discovery of how the mind and the

universes it imagines (or vice-versa, depending) fit together and interact. Multimedia is where we

have always been going.” ( Gibson ,2001)

This idea is fully described in his novel in which, a computer hacker character, named Case, uses a device

to connect to his brain and have access to this cyberspace, parallel to the physical space, where he met

Wintermute, a superior artificial intelligence. The novel has a multilayer representation and in its

cyberspace everything is possible. Moreover, this world that Case navigates, Neuromancer, is free of real

world constrains such as cultural, economic, political etc., and is therefore similar to the free-zone

proposed by Lebbeus Woods. This world constitutes the basis of the today digital world. However, it was

not fully immersive in terms of experience.

Figure 11 a,b) Case in William Gibson’s novel “Neuromancer”, and c)“Snow Crash” by Stevenson

In Neal Stephenson's 1992 sci-fi novel "Snow Crash," the main character, Hiro Protagonist, who delivers

pizza for the Mafia, was portrayed also as a freelance hacker. When he is not working, he enters the

Metaverse, an alternate networked virtual environment in which people appear as self-created "avatars"

and participate in various activities (chat, flirt, fights, espionage etc). The "metaverse," or digital universe

in which he is involved, is a communal, participatory endeavor that is always active and beyond the

control of any single human. It is a man-made habitat designed as an online simulation that resemble the

actual world. The goal is to provide individuals with a virtual environment where they may communicate,

purchase, chat, participate in online activities, sell products, and do everything else as they do in real life.

The people inhabit and control characters that move in space, just as in a video game.

"Ender's Game," written by Orson Scott Card in 1985, was the first sci-fi novel to investigate the

relationship between reality and simulation through video games as a learning aid. The story was set in

an undetermined future in which humans and insectoid aliens known as "buggers" have a fight. The

earth military academy requites and trains young children, including the protagonist Andrew Wiggin

(Ender), in preparation for the invasion. They study military strategy by participating in a series of war

game simulations that were part of the military academy's learning curriculum. Instructors made them

believe that simulation is a game, for them to approach it easily, without considering wars cost, and

distancing them emotional reactions but in fact it was not a game. In this sense, simulation was used as

a tool of make believe that obscures the reality of war, but at the same time enhanced the

understanding of reality. In the simulated reality, there is no real death as enemies are revived

constantly being generated by the computer. War simulations, according to the novel, change the

player's view on war by blurring reality, but they also give an insight into the player's interior reality,

creating a link between humans and aliens. This is an anticipation of the role of games as virtual reality in

bringing people together in the same virtual environment.

Figure 12 a) Orson Scott card * 1985) novel Ender's Game b) movie inspired by the same novel

In this period, several movies such as Tron (1982), “The lawnmower Man” (1992), The Matrix (1999) revolved on topics about computers, technology, digital environments and human interaction with them.

The cult sci-fi film of 1982, Tron, was the first animated movie to represent VR as a technology for digital

games, by extensively employing computer generated imagery (CGI) through backlit or computer

animation techniques and live-action components. These techniques, which up to 1960, were used only

in aerospace and scientific research, after Tron were largely used in entertaining industry. The movie

features a virtual world inhabited by a man, a computer programmer and video game creator who gets

transported into the software realm of a mainframe computer, taking the form of a video game

character interacting with artificial intelligent tyrants and trying to escape and free the program. The

game set is a computer-generated synthetic virtual environment, a landscape with buildings, and

vehicles serving as backdrops for live-action character, which anticipated the today’s virtual space and

alternative world of video games. In addition, it anticipated the desire to not only to immerse and

participate in virtual reality, but also to have an active role in these alternative realities.

Figure 13 Screenshots from 'Tron" movie of 1982.

In 1992, the concept of virtual reality as a separate space was introduced to the large audience by the

sci-fi thriller movie “The lawnmower Man”, based on Brett Leonard’s screenplay of 1975 titled “Cyber

God”.

Figure 14 "The Lawnmower Man" Movie Poster, and movies screenshot

The film was based on the founder of virtual reality, Jaron Lanier, a scientist played by Pierse Brosnan,

who employed VR therapy to boost the intelligence of mentally disabled patients and transform them

into geniuses. The use numerous VR equipment's that become popular nowadays to immerse in the new

three-dimensional realm of virtual reality and to become virtual beings was anticipated in this film. The

movie shows the invasion of virtual reality in people’s life at the point that it become the reality. People

were connected to computers by wearing helmets with visual displays to immerse themselves in the

virtual world, gloves to manipulate virtual objects, touchscreens to control the computer, etc. Hence,