Topic Three: Alphaville

Lecture

We started our lecture with a short discussion about We were shown a DVD of the film "Alphaville" which was made in 1965. I felt a real connection to the film, as it is a genre I am interested in. It introduced topics such as mind control and the repression of feelings and impulses. The film was difficult to watch for many, and some started to annoy me as they were being rude and obnoxious while the film was playing because they didn't like it. I discovered that many of the films i have watched in the past had obviously been influenced by this film. Even the other films that we will be watching for the rest of the semester, Blade Runner and Existenz.

Tutorial

Our tutorial for this week started with a discussion about Alphaville. We talked about its themes of control and repression. The film depicted a world governed by computers, much like our own. We do not however live in a Utilitarian society like the one shown in the movie, but it can be seen as a scary potential forecast of future. After our discussion we moved onto our blogs and updating them for the week. We networked our blogs with each other in order for people to see each others blogs an comment them. From there we moved onto our reading for the week. The reading for the week posed the question of how we used new communication technology to communicate with friends an family. It made me think about how much i rely on myspace and other new technologies such as mobile phones.