505 – Downsizing (2017)

spacetime coordinates: near future Norway / NebraskaDownsizing is a 2017 american science fiction  / high-concept social satire / comedy-drama film directed by Alexander Payne, written by Payne and Jim Taylor and starring Matt Damon, Christoph Waltz, Hong Chau, and Kristen Wiig. It tells the story of a couple who decide to undertake a newly-invented procedure to shrink their bodies so they can start a new life in an experimental community.

Starting with Gulliver’s Travels by Jonathan Swift, there exists a rich literature as well as many films dealing with mini-humans usually called dwarfs. The idea of shrinking human bodies in order to reduce the consumption of raw materials available on earth necessary for the life of mankind was presented for the first time in the novel Das Miniatom-Projekt (2006) by Richard M. Weiner. In the novel the miniaturization takes place at CERN by decreasing the sizes of atoms with the help of the world’s biggest particle accelerator, while in the Downsizing film the shrinkage is performed by bio-medical methods, by decreasing the sizes of cells.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1389072/

0497 – Radio Free Albemuth (2010)

spacetime coordinates:  1985  Los Angeles

Radio Free Albemuth is a 2010 American film adaptation of the dystopian novel Radio Free Albemuth by author Philip K. Dick, which was written in 1976 and published posthumously in 1985. The film is written, directed, and produced by John Alan Simon and stars Jonathan Scarfe and Shea Whigham.

The story is set in an alternate reality 1980’s America under the authoritarian control of President Fremont. It makes liberal references to the collected works of Philip K. Dick.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1129396/

0488 – In Time (2011)

spacetime coordinates: 2169 California

In Time is a 2011 American dystopian science fiction action thriller film written, directed, and produced by Andrew Niccol and starring Justin Timberlake, Amanda Seyfried and Cillian Murphy.

[first lines]
Will Salas: I don’t have time. I don’t have time to worry about how it happened. It is what it is. We’re genetically engineered to stop aging at 25. The trouble is, we live only one more year, unless we can get more time. Time is now the currency. We earn it and spend it. The rich can live forever. And the rest of us? I just want to wake up with more time on my hand than hours in the day.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1637688/

0479 – Human Flow (2017)

Human Flow is a 2017 German documentary film co-produced and directed by Ai Weiwei about the current global refugee crisis. Ai Weiwei also comes from a past of displacement; his entire family was exiled to an isolate village of Xinjiang in the Gobi desert due to his parents being writers in the midst of the Cultural Revolution in China.

Like Human Flow, Ai has created similar art installations such as the “Law of the Journey” that features a 200 foot inflatable boat carrying 258 refugee figures, “Laundromat” where he filled a New York City gallery with discarded clothing and personal notes left by refugees in a camp in Idomeni Greece, and the recreation of the captured image of Aylan Kurdi, the young Syrian who drowned off the coast of Turkey.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt6573444/

https://www.humanflow.com/

0464 – Altered Carbon (TV Series 2018– )

spacetime coordinates:  Bay City, year 2384 // “The Protectorate”

Altered Carbon is an American science fiction television series created by Laeta Kalogridis and based on the 2002 novel of the same title by English author Richard K. Morgan.

In the future, a person’s memories have been decanted into “cortical stacks”, storage devices of alien design which have been reverse engineered, duplicated en masse, and surgically inserted into the vertebrae at the back of the neck. Physical bodies are called “sleeves,” disposable vessels that can accept any “stack”. Takeshi Kovacs (Joel Kinnaman), a political operative with mercenary skills, wakes up 250 years after his sleeve is terminated, and he is given the choice to either spend the rest of time in prison for his crimes, or to help solve the murder of one of the wealthiest men in the settled worlds (James Purefoy). 

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2261227/

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“When everyone lies, telling the truth isn’t just rebellion.
It’s an act of revolution. So think carefully when you speak it,
because the truth is a weapon.”

0450 – Titan A.E. (2000)

spacetime coordinates: 3028 AD – Pierce, Colorado //  3044 AD (16 AE) salvage station TAU 14,  planet Sesharrim, drifter colony New Bangkok, Andali Nebula Ice Rings Of Tigrin

Titan A.E. is a 2000 American animated science fiction film directed by Don Bluth and Gary Goldman. Its title refers to the spacecraft central to the plot, with A.E. meaning “After Earth”. It stars Matt Damon, Bill Pullman, John Leguizamo, Nathan Lane, Janeane Garofalo and Drew Barrymore. The film’s animation technique combines traditional hand-drawn animation and extensive use of computer generated imagery.

Film critic Roger Ebert gave it 3.5/4 stars for its “rousing story”, “largeness of spirit”, and “lush galactic visuals [which] are beautiful in the same way photos by the Hubble Space Telescope are beautiful”. He cited the Ice Rings sequence as “a perfect examine [sic] of what animation can do and live action cannot”.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0120913/

438 – garbage planet Sakaar

Marvel Studios Thor: Ragnarok BTS on set Photo: Jasin Boland ©Marvel Studios 2017

Marvel: Creating the Cinematic Universe Gallery of Modern Art Level 1 galleries installation view