Today's screening was Alex Rivera's 2008 narrative sci-fi film en espanol The Sleep Dealers which was one of the films awarded The Alfred P Sloan Film Prize at Sundance --the Sloan Prize is given to a film that furthers the public imagination about science every year by a panel of scientists and science -friendly artists. This year's prize went to Another Earth by Mike Cahill and Brit Mar.
Oh--here is the article we were discussing in class today from Scientific American about the recent MRI experiments that have been publicized as a breakthrough in dream-imaging. Hmmm...
So Professor Jean Hertzberg is coming to visit next week to demonstrate her own research and visualization software on blood flow in the human body. She is also an interdisciplinary educator in the worlds of science and art as you can see here by her detailed website for her amazing course in Flow Visualization. You know you want to sign up for that next semester!
ps. Make sure to check out the galleries of student work, for inspiration.
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That article is mind blowing... I feel like that will lead to no good. It's weird to meddle with dreams and memories.
ReplyDeleteyes well it's all very sexy in terms of subject matter, and as we discussed in class, one of the major tropes in sci fi. I still think there's a big difference between manifesting dream images and what we see in this video. Dream research is a huge and contested field.
ReplyDeleteBut I do like Brainstorm (1983)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YtwCHfmDQ60
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ReplyDeleteI'm not sure how I feel about the new technology with dreaming. It's really fascinating but I feel like it is taking away the mystery and fantasy of dreams. I saw in a documentary that these scientists were able to remove the thing in a cat's brain that paralyzes them while they sleep. What they found was that the cats were acting as though they were climbing trees, chasing mice, etc. It is really interesting that science is uncovering the secrets of dreams.
ReplyDeleteThe MRI image reminds me more so of what my dreams look like, at least when I really think about it. Typically, I don't physically see faces, I only know inherently that this amorphous blob is my friend Bob or something. It's going to be hard to encode dreams because, unlike a moving image coming into your eye and going to your occipital lobe then to your consciousness, the dreaming process is reversed. It starts in your consciousness (or subconsciousness), then moves to your occipital lobe, then the 'eyes'. Overall, still really fascinating stuff.
ReplyDeleteI think all of this new technology is very cool. I was very interested in what this looked like before I saw it for myself when we were talking about it in class. If I could visually log my dreams, I feel that it could lead to good and bad outcomes. Sometimes I wake up from a kickass dream such as gliding through some powder on my snowboard and then I wake up and lose it. However, if I rewatched some of my dreams, I would probably start asking too many questions.
ReplyDeleteI feel like this film could have been improved upon if there was less CGI and the story's message could have been directed more towards outsourcing and over working in the labor force. The film began so dark but didn't follow through with some of its most interesting ideals. Such as people buying your memories. However, I did think the scientific aspects were well done, if you look at our society today, most of us are "plugged in."
ReplyDeleteYes, the cgi and the film itself did remind me of some of the more cheaply produced stuff from the syfy channel. But there was really some meat to it. The memories for sale I thought was an interesting idea. My favorite line from the film was "now the US can get what they really want. All the Mexican labor without the Mexicans". Also the idea of a plugged in society really isn't science fiction at this point, it is the present reality. As far as imaging dreams, it seems to be like the hovercar idea to me. Sexy, but mostly fantasy. Who knows though, maybe there are some secrets that could be unlocked through the decoding of dreams.
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