Image: Launch Poster, High Life Directed by Claire Denis, 2019

ARC3708H S
Instructor: Brian Boigon
Meeting Section: L0101
Wednesday, 3:00pm - 6:00pm

Science Fiction Architecture and the Cinema explores the underpinnings of how some of the most seminal scenes in the sci-fi genre were designed. From 2001: A Space Odyssey to Annihilation and High Life, students will be exposed to the digital/analogue ways in which these films constructed the future.

This course offers the student an introduction to, and intellectual panorama of, science fiction cinematic design theories that can be exported into the design studio as a set of augmented reality tools.

Students will be exposed to deep learning in the area of editing theory and modelling the imaginary through the Science Fiction Cinema genre. Both Architecture and Landscape Architecture will be addressed in the schemata of this course. The syllabus of which will include theoretical texts and film screenings.

The course is divided into 3 parts:

1. Readings on the Philosophy of Illusion and Reality
2. Design Editing and Architecture
3. Science Fiction Cinema Case Studies

1. Readings on the Philosophy of Illusion and Reality
This section of the course will offer a reading of philosophy texts that address the issues of design, identity and space in film and literature. Philosophy texts will be taken from Classical, Continental, Feminist, Psychoanalytical, Scientific and Metaphysical sources. Authors include: Julia Kristeva, Donna Haraway, Friedrich Nietzsche and Ralph Abraham.

2. Design Editing and Architecture
This section of the course will investigate the theoretical aspects of science fiction/dramatic editing and how a scene is given a temporal space by the way it is constructed. Lectures on readings and guest speakers from the film field will explain the various means in which design editing is the force behind making fictional spaces believable. Design Editors include: Thelma Schoonmaker, Jon Kane, Sally Menke, Kelly Matsumoto. The film editing text we will be using is Noel Burch’s, “Theory of Film Practice”.

3. Science Fiction Cinema Case Studies
This section of the course will investigate classic scenes in which the architecture of science fiction cinema has been advanced. Scene selection will be based on specific ways a film can create a complete environment and how that has been brought to life. Case Studies will be conducted by students based on the previous two sections on “Philosophy” and “Design Editing”. Films Directors will include: Michael Bay, Kathryn Bigelow, Stanley Kubrick, Michelle MacLaren and Claire Denis.

Science Fiction Architecture and the Cinema will include lectures and presentations based on required readings followed by class discussion. Students will be produce and present group and individual assignments.
 

“Sometimes reality is too complex for oral communication. But legend embodies it in a form which enables it to spread all over the world”
- Jean-Luc Goddard, Alphaville, 1965

Image: Blade Runner 2049, Production Still, Directed by Denis Villeneuve, 2017