I continue my explorations these days into pleasurable sci-fi territories I’d forgotten about during my doctoral study (contrary to what the Thesis whisperer blogger describes as her experience of repression during PhD study, I didn’t binge any trash fiction literature during my study – well, except for a bit of True Blood). And so I watched Kathryn Bigelow’s film Strange Days (1995) and the Lawnmower Man (1992) again, and will spend winter holidays probably watching again some VR, time travel and AI classics. Strange Days was directed by Kathryn Bigelow, the first woman director to win an Oscar for the 2008 film The Hurt Locker. The film received substantial attention when it was released, especially since ideas about virtual life and cyberspace (and the vocabulary that emerged to describe technological change and new mediated experiences) were quite popular at the time. The film represents a dystopian version of pre -Y2K Los Angeles -is interesting because Continue reading →