0848 – New Dark Age: Technology and the End of the Future by James Bridle (2018 book)

As the world around us increases in technological complexity, our understanding of it diminishes. Underlying this trend is a single idea: the belief that our existence is understandable through computation, and more data is enough to help us build a better world.
In reality, we are lost in a sea of information, increasingly divided by fundamentalism, simplistic narratives, conspiracy theories, and post-factual politics. Meanwhile, those in power use our lack of understanding to further their own interests. Despite the apparent accessibility of information, we’re living in a new Dark Age.

From rogue financial systems to shopping algorithms, from artificial intelligence to state secrecy, we no longer understand how our world is governed or presented to us. The media is filled with unverifiable speculation, much of it generated by anonymous software, while companies dominate their employees through surveillance and the threat of automation.
In his brilliant new work, leading artist and writer James Bridle surveys the history of art, technology, and information systems, and reveals the dark clouds that gather over our dreams of the digital sublime. (VERSO)

James Bridle on New Dark Age: Technology and the End of the Future

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man always makes it clear to himself: “You are using things which have the intention of not being penetrable.” 1180

0814 – Apostle (2018)

timespace coordinates: remote Welsh island, 1905

Apostle is a 2018 British-American period horror film written and directed by Gareth Evans and starring Dan Stevens, Lucy Boynton, Mark Lewis Jones, Bill Milner, Kristine Froseth and Michael Sheen. (wiki)

“A drifter on a dangerous mission to rescue his kidnapped sister tangles with a sinister religious cult on an isolated island.” (imdb)

0776 – Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure (1989)

timespace coordinates: 2688 >1988 San Dimas, California > Austria in 1805 > 1879  the Old West > 410 BC ancient Greece > 14th century medieval England > 1901 Vienna Austria > Kassel, Germany, 1810 > Orleans, France, 1429 > Outer Mongolia 1209 >The White House, 1863

Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure is a 1989 American science fiction comedy film directed by Stephen Herek and written by Chris Matheson and Ed Solomon. It stars Alex Winter, Keanu Reeves, and George Carlin. The plot follows slackers Bill (Winter) and Ted (Reeves), who travel through time to assemble historical figures for their high school history presentation.

Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure received generally positive reviews and was commercially successful. It is now considered a cult classic.

DC Comics produced a tie-in comic following the plot of the first movie timed to coincide with that film’s release on home video. The sequel was adapted by DC’s competitor Marvel Comics, published to coincide with the second film’s release in theaters. Its popularity led to the ongoing Marvel series Bill & Ted’s Excellent Comic Book by Evan Dorkin, which lasted for 12 issues.

There were also Game Boy, NES and Atari Lynx games released, which were very loosely based on the film’s plot. A PC title and nearly identical Amiga and Commodore 64 port were made in 1991 by Off the Wall Productions and IntraCorp, Inc. under contract by Capstone Software and followed the original film very closely. (wiki)

imdb

762 – Electric Dreams (2017 TV series)

Philip K. Dick’s Electric Dreams, or simply Electric Dreams, is a British anthology television series based on various writings from author Philip K. Dick, each of the 10 stand-alone episodes are set in a different and unique world — some that lay in the far reaches of the universe and others that are much closer to home. While the stories may be worlds apart, central to each is the exploration of the importance and significance of humanity. (rt)

imdb   /   wiki

0746 – The Island (2005)

timespace coordinates: 2019 Arizona > Los Angeles

The Island is a 2005 American science fiction thriller film directed and co-produced by Michael Bay. It stars Ewan McGregor, Scarlett Johansson, Djimon Hounsou, Sean Bean, Michael Clarke Duncan and Steve Buscemi.

In the story, Lincoln Six Echo (McGregor) struggles to fit into the highly structured world he lives in, isolated in a compound, and the series of events that unfold when he questions how truthful that world is. After Lincoln learns the compound inhabitants are clones used for organ harvesting as well as surrogates for wealthy people in the outside world, he attempts to escape with Jordan Two Delta (Johansson) and expose the illegal cloning movement.

The Island has been described as a pastiche of “escape-from-dystopia” science fiction films of the 1960s and 1970s, such as Fahrenheit 451, THX 1138, Parts: The Clonus Horror, and Logan’s Run. (wiki)

imdb

734 – The Giver (2014)

timespace coordinates: futuristic dystopian / utopian society after a calamity, referred to as The RuinThe Giver is a 2014 American social science fiction film directed by Phillip Noyce and starring Jeff Bridges, Brenton Thwaites, Odeya Rush, Meryl Streep and Alexander Skarsgård. The film is based on the 1993 novel The Giver by Lois Lowry.

imdb

0732 – The White King (2016)

The White King is a 2016 British sci-fi-drama film written and directed by Alex Helfrecht and Jörg Tittel. It is an adaptation of the 2008 Hungarian novel of the same name written by György Dragomán and follows Djata (Lorenzo Allchurch) growing up in an agrarian totalitarian state, without access to the rest of the world, while dealing with persecution against him and his parents (Agyness Deyn & Ross Partridge) by the government. (wiki)

György Dragomán’s story has been transposed to fictitious near-future dictatorship. Dragomán said this about the film: “In my original novel I wanted to show freedom in a society where freedom should not exist. In their movie Alex and Jörg were brave enough to take my communist childhood tale and adapt it into a modern story, showing us that the threat to freedom is as eternal as our fight for it.”

imdb