Daniel Dinello's first great science fiction epiphany, at age 8, came not in the form of a sci-fi movie but one traditionally understood as a horror classic: "Frankenstein," director James Whale's 1931 film adaptation of Mary Shelley's novel about a mad scientist who builds a monster that ends up out of its creator's control.
"I was scared by it, but also intrigued by the idea of a monster created by electicity and body parts sewn together," Dinello recalls fondly. "There was a horrifying aspect to it, but also a certain amount of identifying with the power of the monster, who thrashes through the countryside and just generally runs amok."
That was just the beginning. Growing up in the 1950s, at the height of nuclear paranoia -- "the duck-and-cover age," as Dinello puts it -- he was drawn to movies like "Invasion of the Body Snatchers," featuring humans replaced by alien pods, and "Them," in which society is beset by giant ants horribly transformed by exposure to radioactivity.
"I wasn't precocious enough to perceive that the mutated ants symbolized the nuclear bomb," says Dinello, now 57. "But I felt it."
Over time, he became fascinated by science fiction not just as exciting yarns but as metaphors, cautionary tales and social criticism. As a filmmaker, critic and professor at Columbia College Chicago, he developed a particular interest in sci-fi novels and movies that critiqued corporate and military scientists whose utopian visions of an ideal world perfected by their own fantastic inventions have a nasty way of coming back to bite the seat of their lab coats.
The result of these ruminations is Technophobia! Science Fiction Visions of Posthuman Technology (University of Texas Press, $24.95), in which Dinello explores the chasm between the rosy daydreams of scientists and the more jaundiced nightmares of sci-fi writers and filmmakers. From "Frankenstein" to "The Matrix," robots, androids, cyborgs, artificial intelligence, cloning, the wilds of cyberspace, even cell phones and iPods -- which, come to think of it, do sound pretty sinister -- are all occasions for hair-raising speculation about how technological advances can go terribly wrong.
This theme has proved remarkably durable over the decades, Dinello says. "Depending on the era, it gets altered a little bit to reflect a little of the current ideas." Recent permutations focus on human/alien hybrids ("The X-Files," "Star Trek: Nemesis") and clones as evil twins or mindless armies manipulated by dark forces ("Star Wars: Attack of the Clones").
On occasion, the technology-gone-haywire trope can even hold up a dark mirror in which we can glimpse our own faults, including bigotry, narcissism and corruption. In "Blade Runner" and "Artificial Intelligence: A.I.," androids or other artificial humans are often more sympathetic than actual people, Dinello says. "They're more empathetic, stronger, better-looking and more able to love than real people, whereas the humans are often vicious murderers. In 'Blade Runner,' an android is even compared to Christ."
Joe Steiff, his fellow filmmaker and Columbia College colleague, says Dinello has done a good job of capturing the way science fiction provides a forum for ethical debates about technology that may or may not be happening in real-life settings.
"In the private sector especially, with the dollar being the bottom line, there's concern about whether those ethical conversations come into play as much they ought to be," Steiff says. "There's plenty of anecdotal evidence that calls into question whether there are checks and balances within the research community, and science fiction writers are saying, 'Wait a minute.'"
That's particularly true in the area of the blurring of human and machine, "which 20 years ago would have been entirely in the realm of science fiction but increasingly is becoming foreseeably possible," he says. "Dan gives us a good cross-section of questions that have been raised about all of that."
At 6 p.m. Thursday at HotHouse (31 E. Balbo), Dinello will give a free lecture/demonstration on the topic, featuring clips from classic sci-fi films and TV shows such as "Metropolis," "Forbidden Planet," "Videodrome," "Blade Runner," "Gattaca," "The Matrix," "A.I." and "Battlestar Gallactica." He will also screen "Shock Asylum," his 1997 short film starring his nephew, comedian Paul Dinello ("Strangers with Candy"), and Stephen Colbert ("The Colbert Report").
"I'm not wanting to demonize all scientists," Dinello says. "Brain surgery fascinates me, for example -- the whole issue of consciousness, and how it's related to electrochemistry and biological explanations of brain function.
"But I'm also interested in scientists who promote technology as a panacea, and whose utopian visions are sometimes used, I think, to score grant money, or to develop more weapons, which soak up so much of the national budget. I like the idea of looking at present-day technology and extrapolating it out into the future, imagining its possible consequences."
Just don't expect the view to be pretty.
0 opinanços:
Enviar um comentário