postmodern cityscape as a sight of simulation and spectacle

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For this assignment, I decided to take a look at the 18 movie ‘Blade Runner’. Blade Runner is set in Los Angeles, November 01, and tells a story in which artificially simulated humans, or ‘replicants’, not only threaten the morality of human personal identity, but also the very essence of what is ‘real’. Deckard is a Blade Runner, a policeman of the future who hunts down and terminates replicants. He wants to get out of the force, but is drawn back in when five skin jobs, a slang term for replicants, hijack a ship back to Earth. The city that Deckard must search for his targets is a huge, bleak vision of the future. This film questions what it is to be human, and why life is so precious.

I think that it is first important to define what I mean by ‘postmodernism’, ‘simulation’ and ‘spectacle’. All three terms are important when discussing the cityscape in Blade Runner.

I have defined postmodernism as

“Any of a number of trends or movements in the arts and literature developing in the 170s in reaction to or rejection of the dogma, principles, or practices of established modernism, especially a movement in architecture and the decorative arts running counter to the practice and influence of the International Style and encouraging the use of elements from historical vernacular styles and often playful illusion, decoration, and complexity”




The film I am looking at is based on the novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep by Philip K Dick, and has been cited in a large number of articles since its release as being a perfect example of a post-modern film.

According to Jean Baudrillard’s definition of simulation, simulation is equal to the hyperreal, ‘the product of an irradiating synthesis of combinatory models in a hyperspace without atmosphere’. This means that simulation is more real than real, it can even take over the real (Simulations, 18) Baudrillard hypothesised that through the mirroring of reality, we can easily lose sight of what is actually real. There is perhaps no other work that so incorporates Baudrillard’s concept of Simulation (or simulacra) than ‘Blade Runner . In his book ‘Simulations’, Baudrillard expresses his theory of simulation in his analysis of Borges’ story about the imperial map. In Borges story, cartographers of the empire construct a map so detailed that it covers the entire territory. The ‘original’ then becomes nearly indistinguishable from its copy, or ‘simulation’. This is relevant as the narrative of Blade Runner focuses on the quest for truthful representations of reality.

I am going to look at the concepts of cityscape, simulation and spectacle in two ways, firstly through the architecture of the city, and secondly through the idea of the replicant.

Blade Runner manages to incorporate both modernist and postmodernist ideas as it obtains the imagery of New York and Los Angeles. The study of post industrialism is shown by an imagined LA, which is built in an amalgamation of architectural styles from different periods . Paul M. Sammon has documented the confusion about where exactly the film was set, as he notes that the film switches from ‘San Angeles’ (a hybrid of San Francisco and Los Angeles) to New York and then back to Los Angeles again . The building’s architectural designs are a post-modern blend � for example, the Tyrell building is a mix of Egyptian pyramids with Roman and Greek columns. It suggests horizontal expansiveness rather than height which is considered to be mostly LA inspired, but yet when Deckard leaves, the city is made up of closely packed high rise buildings which is New York inspired . One of the most distinguishable things about the science fiction genre is the representation of a known city in which recognisable sections of modern cityscapes are presented, while other parts of it are rewritten.

When looking at the replicants in the movie, they are perfect copies, they look like humans, they talk like humans, and they even have feelings and emotions which in the science fiction genre is the ultimate sign of the human. These replicants are the perfect simulacra. It is in this simulation that the power of the replicants resides. Baudrillard describes simulation as ‘an operational double…which provides all the signs of the real’ which is an perfect description of what the replicants are. There is no obvious way to tell human and replicant apart, the only way is the perform the Voight-Kampf test, a test designed to identify a replicant by measuring physical, bodily responses to a series of questions designed to provoke an emotional response. With Rachel however, the system has reached excellence, she is the most perfect of the replicants, as she has no idea if she is a replicant or not.

Blade Runner is said to be responsible for much of the visual imagery associated with postmodernism, and spectacle is used to stimulate the imagination. There is the expectation of an audience to take delight in visual texture, with the retro-fitted spectacle of the post-modern city to take in. Writings on the mass media concentrate on the passivity of the audience in the face of the spectacle . Spectacle has been defines as

“Something exhibited to view as unusual, notable, or entertaining; especially an eye-catching or dramatic public display”

Films in general, as visual narrative forms, play with the desires of audiences. This desire for the visual, for the spectacle, is much older than the current post-modern simulatory debate. Laura Mulvay comments on film viewing

…there are circumstances in which looking itself is a source of pleasure, just as, in the reverse formation, there is pleasure in being looked at”

It has been said that the science fiction film allows its viewers many different pleasures, whether they are those of narrative or spectacle, art or entertainment, or any other combination. One thing is, spectacle has always seemed to play a more important role than narrative.

In conclusion to the assignment, it is obvious from the research I have undertaken that simulation and spectacle are incredibly important concepts when looking at the cityscape in Blade Runner. The post-industrial society is the ‘society of the spectacle’. The replicants are an essential part of the film, for once we begin to replace aspects of our humanity to such a degree, there is little left to value in human life. Blade Runner creates a ‘real’ world for its audiences to view and the reason it was so successful was the prescience of its vision . The design of the film offers a fine example of a spectacular hyperreality. Blade Runner rewards the attentive viewer by presenting them with a complex but readable space that exists in contrast to the decentering effects of the narrative structure.

WORD COUNT 1100

Bibliography

BOOKS

ɨ Baudrillard, J ‘The Precession of Simulacra’ in Wallis, B (184) Art After Modern Rethinking Representation, Godine, p. 5

ɨ Bukatman Scott (1) Terminal Identity The Virtual Subject in Post-modern Science Fiction, Durham Duke University Press, p. 0 & 1

ɨ Giuliana Bruno (10) Ramble City Post modernism and Blade Runner in Annette Kuhn (ed) Alien zone cultural theory and contemporary science fiction cinema London Verso, p. 18-15

ɨ Harvey, David (14) The Condition of Post Modernity, Blackwell, Oxford, pp. 10-11

ɨ Jenks, Chris (15) Visual Cultures, Routledge, New York

ɨ Kuhn, Annette (1) Alien Zone II The Spaces of Science Fiction Cinema, London, Verso, pp. -5, 11-10 & 16-1

ɨ Mulvey, Laura (18) Visual and Other Pleasures, London Macmillan Press, p. 16

ɨ Landon, Brooks & Tymn, Marshall B (1) The Aesthetics of Ambivalence Rethinking Science Fiction Film in the Age of Electronic (Re)production, Greenwood Press, p 61

INTERNET RESOURCES

ɨ Hyperreality - home.earthlink.net/~osfavela00/sunshine/hyperreality.html

ɨ Cupitt, Cathy - Desire & Vision in Blade Runner - www.geocities.com/area51/hollow/405/blade.html

ɨ Rowley, Steven (1) Blade Runner & The Future City - home.mira.net/~satadaca/bladrunn.htm

ɨ Campbell, Adrian M - Post-modern Science Fiction & Cyberpunk � www.btinternet.com

ɨ More Human than Human Blade Runner & The Paradox of Simulacra � www.wings.buffalo.edu

ɨ Dictionary Definitions - aol1.infoplease.com/ipd/A0574.html

ɨ Bole, Greg (18) Blade Runner � www.us.imdb.com/title?008658

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