tag:theconversation.com,2011:/africa/topics/j-g-ballard-45145/articles
J G Ballard – The Conversation
2021-01-28T13:08:18Z
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/151804
2021-01-28T13:08:18Z
2021-01-28T13:08:18Z
Sea-level rise: writers imagined drowned worlds for centuries – what they tell us about the future
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/381086/original/file-20210128-17-18gdk12.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C6000%2C3997&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/statue-liberty-sinks-ocean-1473010394">OFC Pictures/Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Water was <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-12-06/water-futures-to-start-trading-amid-growing-fears-of-scarcity">traded on Wall Street</a> alongside oil and gold for the first time in early December 2020. That might seem bizarre, but there is a grim logic at play. Reliable sources of water that have nourished civilisations throughout history – the glaciers and ice packs that release a steady flow each spring – are shrinking. <a href="https://tc.copernicus.org/articles/15/233/2021/">New research</a> has revealed that the world is losing ice 65% faster now than it did in the 1990s, at a rate of 1.3 trillion tonnes a year.</p>
<p>In works of <a href="https://theconversation.com/cli-fi-novels-humanise-the-science-of-climate-change-and-leading-authors-are-getting-in-on-the-act-51270">climate fiction</a>, depictions of environmental disaster often focus on the very property of water that has brought it to the attention of futures traders: its volatility. It has fed fantasies of flooded future worlds throughout history. But with the melting of the world’s ice sheets tracking the <a href="https://insideclimatenews.org/news/25012021/global-ice-loss-sea-level-rise/">worst-case scenarios</a> of scientists, the stories no longer seem so fantastical. A sea-level rise of two-and-a-half metres is possible by 2100, according to the estimates of the <a href="https://www.climate.gov/news-features/understanding-climate/climate-change-global-sea-level#:%7E:text=Based%20on%20their%20new%20scenarios,above%202000%20levels%20by%202100.">National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration</a> in the US.</p>
<p>These predictions resonate with prophecies that have haunted cultures since the dawn of language. How might life be different in a drowned world? Who is responsible for the flood? And how can people alive today face this sea-soaked future? Literature is an inevitably rich guide.</p>
<h2>Conjuring the flood</h2>
<p>The story of a world-destroying flood reaches back in Judeo-Christian traditions to Noah’s ark and beyond that, to the Sumerian flood story that dates to around 2000 BC. This was passed down in hushed voices around campfires until it was recorded on Tablet XI of The Epic of Gilgamesh.</p>
<p>Floods occur in the myths of most cultures. The Ojibwe First Nations people in North America speak of The Great Serpent and the Great Flood; the story of Manu and Matsya is a Hindu flood myth; and the Welsh tale of Dwyvan and Dwyvach is an analogue for the son of Prometheus in Ancient Greek mythology, Deucalion, who survives the flood by building a large chest upon which to float.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="An illustration of Noah's Ark riding a huge wave." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/381092/original/file-20210128-15-1nwljve.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/381092/original/file-20210128-15-1nwljve.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/381092/original/file-20210128-15-1nwljve.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/381092/original/file-20210128-15-1nwljve.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/381092/original/file-20210128-15-1nwljve.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/381092/original/file-20210128-15-1nwljve.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/381092/original/file-20210128-15-1nwljve.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Stories of ‘the great flood’ echo throughout cultures worldwide.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-illustration/noahs-ark-middle-storm-3d-rendering-1326289805">Fer Gregory/Shutterstock</a></span>
</figcaption>
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<p>In most of these stories, the flood is the wrath of the gods (or god) on a hedonistic or godless community, though the “good” are saved. Zeus sends a flood to punish the arrogant Pelasgians; Noah is commanded to build the ark; and Lord Vishnu, disguised as the fish-like Matsya, warns the good-hearted mortal Manu of the coming waters. Our modern preoccupations with rising seas map directly onto these stories, as we assign fault for the global warming that is melting ice caps and inching the ocean up the shore.</p>
<h2>An ocean of loneliness</h2>
<p><a href="https://theconversation.com/pandemics-from-homer-to-stephen-king-what-we-can-learn-from-literary-history-133572">Apocalyptic narratives</a> have abounded for centuries, but JG Ballard’s The Drowned World was one of the first to offer a modern interpretation of a planet beset by rising seas. Set in 2145, the influence of the 1962 novel on contemporary fiction set in a deluged future is unmistakable. Ballard imagines a balmy London that’s mostly submerged, infested with giant alligators and traversed by mercenary scuba divers who plunder the city’s museums and cathedrals. </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/381090/original/file-20210128-19-zsqwud.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A book cover depicting a lone figure on a rooftop surrounding by vegetation and water." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/381090/original/file-20210128-19-zsqwud.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/381090/original/file-20210128-19-zsqwud.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=1001&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/381090/original/file-20210128-19-zsqwud.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=1001&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/381090/original/file-20210128-19-zsqwud.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=1001&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/381090/original/file-20210128-19-zsqwud.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1258&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/381090/original/file-20210128-19-zsqwud.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1258&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/381090/original/file-20210128-19-zsqwud.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1258&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The first edition cover of The Drowned World.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Drowned_World#/media/File:TheDrownedWorld(1stEd).jpg">Berkley Books</a></span>
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<p>The Drowned World explores the effects of human isolation, as London is emptied of all but a few die-hard survivors, soldiers and scavengers. As separate islands, the characters wallow in the loneliness that so many of us have become used to during lockdown. Not only does the sea-level rise destroy coastal cities, it also limits emotional connections between the remnant populations. With most common ground inaccessible, Ballard projects a lonelier, more violent, world.</p>
<h2>Working together</h2>
<p>Kim Stanley Robinson’s 2017 novel New York 2140 precedes Ballard’s setting by five years, but apart from depicting cities under water, the two imagined worlds couldn’t be more different. “New York is underwater but it’s better than ever,” reads <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/books/page-turner/kim-stanley-robinsons-latest-novel-imagines-life-in-an-underwater-new-york">one review</a>. </p>
<p>Robinson moves between first and third-person narration, with several sections given over to an omniscient urban historian narrator known as “the city” or “that city smartass”. These sections describe changes in the Hudson Bay area over the last millennium, from its pre-colonisation days, through the 2008 crash, the rising seas and global disasters to the “present” day of the flooded near-future. </p>
<p>This deep-time perspective suggests that individual action for environmental repair is both futile and absolutely necessary as a form of reparation. This is the <a href="https://salvage.zone/in-print/the-limits-of-utopia/">contradiction</a> of optimistic pessimism common to speculative fiction. The individual must take political action against climate disaster, or face a drowned world alone, as Ballard’s anti-hero Kerans is doomed to. </p>
<p>Robinson’s heroes are Charlotte and Inspector Gen, two middle-aged women working in refugee resettlement and policing, respectively. They live in the same cooperative housing project in Madison Square Park as Franklin, a young futures trader manipulating water commodities. His shark-like approach to trading is altered by his community-minded neighbours, who motivate him to rebel. For Robinson, individuals can only overcome if they organise.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/EQ3oKnZx088?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
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<p>And overcoming the rising seas will mean more than adjusting to flooded coasts. Some works of fiction consider how a rise in sea level will limit food production, as in Paolo Bacigalupi’s The Windup Girl. Others depict the consequences of mass migration to the remaining habitable parts of the planet, as in EJ Swift’s The Osiris Project. </p>
<p>These stories explore a sea-level rise as an existential threat to human life that’s exacerbated by the paralysis and inaction of individuals. Recent offerings of climate fiction, such as Robinson’s New York 2140 or The Ministry for the Future go further, and operate at the level of utopian imagination implicit in Ballard’s earlier dystopian vision, asking: what if we do something about it?</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/151804/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Chelsea Haith does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
Cultures worldwide are awash with tales of great floods. What can they tell us about the reality of a wetter world?
Chelsea Haith, DPhil Candidate in Contemporary English Literature, University of Oxford
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/55186
2016-03-18T12:17:39Z
2016-03-18T12:17:39Z
Why the dark world of High-Rise is not so far from reality
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/115578/original/image-20160318-4439-sm6z17.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/dm-set/9713067540/sizes/o/">Sarah G.../Flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The new film adaption of J G Ballard’s classic 1975 novel High-Rise has been a while coming. Much like the power-cuts that interrupt life in the novel’s namesake, various attempts to translate the book for cinema have been erratic, and ultimately failed. But with director Ben Wheatley’s effort garnering <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/film/2016/mar/17/high-rise-review-tom-hiddleston-ben-wheatley-jb-ballard">positive reviews</a> and critical acclaim, perhaps it is useful to reconsider the story’s meaning. </p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/115416/original/image-20160317-30244-1194cy5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/115416/original/image-20160317-30244-1194cy5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=925&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/115416/original/image-20160317-30244-1194cy5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=925&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/115416/original/image-20160317-30244-1194cy5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=925&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/115416/original/image-20160317-30244-1194cy5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1163&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/115416/original/image-20160317-30244-1194cy5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1163&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/115416/original/image-20160317-30244-1194cy5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1163&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">High-Rise, first edition, 1975.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:HighRise(1stEd).jpg">Wikimedia Commons</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>High-Rise tells the story of Robert Laing – a middle class doctor who moves into a complex of futuristic, luxury tower blocks just outside of London. The building where Laing lives is designed to provide everything its residents need, from green spaces, to shops and swimming pools. </p>
<p>But there’s a darker side to this architectural Utopia. As events unfold, the building seems to exert a malign influence on its occupants and spats over resources escalate into violent conflicts between “enemy floors”. In some ways, the tower itself becomes the antagonist, influencing the moods and movements of the other characters as powerfully as any person. </p>
<h2>Failed Utopias</h2>
<p>As Wheatley himself <a href="https://www.vice.com/video/vice-talks-film-with-ben-wheatley-873">has said</a>, it would be kind of pointless to make a film that has no relevance to modern life. So what message does High-Rise hold for us, in an era when our skylines are becoming more and more congested with towering edifices?</p>
<p>For one thing, the film draws on important lessons from our past. In the naked ambition of High-Rise’s lead architect, Anthony Royal (Jeremy Irons), we can see traces of Le Corbusier’s plans for his <a href="http://www.archdaily.com/411878/ad-classics-ville-radieuse-le-corbusier">Ville Radieuse</a> (“the radiant city”), first presented in 1924. In Le Corbusier’s vision, high-density housing was arranged in a Cartesian grid, spread across a huge green area – it was intended to function as a “living machine”. It was never built, due to the sheer scale and costs involved. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/115421/original/image-20160317-30247-a6a236.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/115421/original/image-20160317-30247-a6a236.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=474&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/115421/original/image-20160317-30247-a6a236.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=474&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/115421/original/image-20160317-30247-a6a236.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=474&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/115421/original/image-20160317-30247-a6a236.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=595&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/115421/original/image-20160317-30247-a6a236.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=595&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/115421/original/image-20160317-30247-a6a236.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=595&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Demolition of Pruitt Igoe in St. Louis, 1972.</span>
</figcaption>
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<p>High-Rise also brings into view some of the thinking around tower blocks from the time the novel was written. Following a number of “failed” high-rise projects from the 1960s onward, people began to critique architecture as a form of social engineering, which could influence residents’ behaviour in negative ways. </p>
<p>Take, for example, <a href="http://www.economist.com/blogs/prospero/2011/10/american-public-housing">Pruitt Igoe in St Louis</a> in the US: after its completion in the early 1950s, the complex quickly became known for its poor living conditions and crime. Lead architect <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/cities/2015/apr/22/pruitt-igoe-high-rise-urban-america-history-cities">Minoru Yamasaki lamented</a>: “I never thought people were that destructive.” Its demolition in 1972 was labelled by Charles Jencks as “the day modern architecture died”.</p>
<p>Even today, politicians in the UK blame the design of “streets in the sky” tower blocks for <a href="http://www.thesundaytimes.co.uk/sto/comment/columns/article1654318.ece">building in crime</a> – despite <a href="https://theconversation.com/thatcher-helped-people-to-buy-their-own-homes-but-the-poorest-paid-the-price-50133">evidence to suggest</a> that there were are many other social issues which contribute to these outcomes. </p>
<h2>Architecture of inequality</h2>
<p>As well as regenerating these historical topics for a modern audience, High-Rise also evokes some of the most pressing issues in today’s urbanism – in particular, how social inequalities play out in our built environment. </p>
<p>High-Rise portrays architecture as a solidifier of social divisions. In the novel, society is stratified according to wealth, with richer tenants inhabiting the upper levels and less wealthy people toward the base. The residents’ physical separation inflames their hostility toward those they see as different from themselves.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/115582/original/image-20160318-4415-ujdze2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/115582/original/image-20160318-4415-ujdze2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=322&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/115582/original/image-20160318-4415-ujdze2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=322&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/115582/original/image-20160318-4415-ujdze2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=322&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/115582/original/image-20160318-4415-ujdze2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=405&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/115582/original/image-20160318-4415-ujdze2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=405&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/115582/original/image-20160318-4415-ujdze2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=405&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Sienna Miller looking down on the masses in High-Rise.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Studio Canal</span></span>
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</figure>
<p>But all to often, the reality is far more complex. Take, for example, the recent disputes over upmarket apartment blocks in New York or London, which <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/davehillblog/2015/aug/03/london-housing-what-would-a-ban-on-poor-doors-achieve">funnel poorer residents</a> into the building through alternative access routes. </p>
<p>Dubbed “poor doors”, these separate entrances prevent residents of different socioeconomic backgrounds from circulating in the same spaces, effectively building in social segregation. But while this practice has been condemned as abhorrent and divisive, it can actually help keep costs down for poorer tenants, because they don’t have to contribute to the maintenance of main stairwells and lobbies. </p>
<h2>Control, space, delete</h2>
<p>If the social tensions portrayed in High-Rise are being played out anywhere in our society, it’s at ground level – and public spaces are the battlefield.</p>
<p>Corporations and developers are <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/cities/2015/aug/04/pops-privately-owned-public-space-cities-direct-action">increasingly taking ownership</a> of the public realm. As more gated communities, retail developments and privately owned parks spring up, the questions around who is allowed to come into these spaces and who is not become increasingly pressing.</p>
<p>In his later novel, Cocaine Nights, Ballard wrote with troubling prescience about this erasure of public life, and the rise of defensive urbanism:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Townscapes are changing. The open-plan city belongs in the past – no more ramblas, no more pedestrian precincts, no more left banks and Latin quarters. We’re moving into the age of security grilles and defensible space. As for living, our surveillance cameras can do that for us. People are locking their doors and switching off their nervous systems.“</p>
</blockquote>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/115418/original/image-20160317-30219-4ejmlv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/115418/original/image-20160317-30219-4ejmlv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/115418/original/image-20160317-30219-4ejmlv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/115418/original/image-20160317-30219-4ejmlv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/115418/original/image-20160317-30219-4ejmlv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/115418/original/image-20160317-30219-4ejmlv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/115418/original/image-20160317-30219-4ejmlv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Public space protection order, Hackney 2015.</span>
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</figure>
<p>This fear of others is perhaps more keenly felt through top-down measures such as <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/cities/2015/sep/08/pspos-new-control-orders-public-spaces-asbos-freedoms">public space protection orders</a>. These local government mandates can prohibit certain behaviours in the public realm, such as sleeping rough, begging, or even <a href="http://metro.co.uk/2016/02/29/london-council-bans-standing-in-pairs-in-town-centre-unless-youre-at-a-bus-stop-5725461/">standing in small groups</a>. </p>
<p>In both examples, we can detect the same fear of "otherness”, which the residents of the High-Rise feel toward those on different floors. </p>
<p>This is the true power of the film adaptation: Wheatley has expertly reimagined Ballard’s futuristic novel in a way that rings true to us now. </p>
<h2>Lost futures</h2>
<p>That said, we are still some distance from the dense, dystopian settlements of High-Rise. But then, any architect can attest that the future never turns out in quite the way we imagine. For example, the Barbican Estate in London – which was perhaps a visual reference for the film – featured “highwalks”. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/115581/original/image-20160318-4417-17v3hny.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/115581/original/image-20160318-4417-17v3hny.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=348&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/115581/original/image-20160318-4417-17v3hny.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=348&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/115581/original/image-20160318-4417-17v3hny.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=348&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/115581/original/image-20160318-4417-17v3hny.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=437&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/115581/original/image-20160318-4417-17v3hny.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=437&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/115581/original/image-20160318-4417-17v3hny.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=437&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Not so futuristic now.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:London2007_img_5457.jpg">Gürkan Sengün/Wikimedia Commons</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>These raised, covered walkways were envisaged as the future of pedestrian movement. The architects even designed the highwalk system with connection points, ready for the attachment of new paths. But this version of London never arrived, and today the pathways are simply an eccentricity of the building. </p>
<p>The density and intensity of the High-Rise is not yet mirrored by modern society – and it may never be. But this film is a timely warning that the built environment reflects the cultures and values of the society which created it. And what is certain is that the more screens, gates, meshes and separation that we place between ourselves, the more fractured our social relations, and the more we demonise the weak, the poor and the voiceless.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/55186/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Nick Dunn does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
Wheatley has expertly reimagined Ballard’s futuristic novel in a way that rings true to modern living.
Nick Dunn, Professor of Urban Design, Lancaster University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/46350
2015-12-11T13:19:00Z
2015-12-11T13:19:00Z
Star Wars: escapist fantasy or dream of the future?
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/104688/original/image-20151207-3108-xiju7s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=423%2C3%2C1241%2C855&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">© 2015 Lucasfilm Ltd. & TM. All Right Reserved.</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>In certain corners of the internet a modern myth celebrates the idea that Ben Rich, the former CEO of Lockheed Martin “<a href="http://www.lockheedmartin.co.uk/us/aeronautics/skunkworks.html">Skunk Works</a>” – the legendary and highly secretive wing of Lockheed Martin concerned with aircraft development – concluded a 1993 presentation at UCLA with the blockbuster line: “We now have the technology to take E.T. home.” </p>
<p>How we engage with scientific and technological progress has long been influenced by science fiction. Science fiction provides a testing ground for <a href="https://theconversation.com/past-visions-of-future-cities-were-monstrous-but-now-we-imagine-a-brighter-tomorrow-29188">future visions</a> informed by areas as diverse as biological and mechanical engineering through to political, social and ethical concerns. Such visions often combine the optimistic with the pessimistic. They draw upon the genres of utopian and dystopian storytelling that date back to Plato’s vision of Atlantis.</p>
<p>When the first Star Wars film was released in 1977 it was embraced as an <a href="http://example.com/">escapist fantasy</a> – a “space opera” offering “pure entertainment”, as <a href="http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/herocomplex/la-et-hc-flashback-george-lucas-making-star-wars-20151206-story.html">George Lucas intended</a>. But when, finally, <a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/topics/star-wars">The Force Awakens</a> next week it will reach a very different generation, <a href="http://buzzaldrin.com/space-vision/generation-mars/">referred</a> to by Buzz Aldrin as #GenerationMars; a generation who are used to interactive objects speaking back at them. We are now adapting to a world where what was once considered science fiction often blurs into science fact. The alternate reality visualised in Star Wars is now potentially much closer to home.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/104691/original/image-20151207-3139-1i2l8sn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/104691/original/image-20151207-3139-1i2l8sn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=420&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/104691/original/image-20151207-3139-1i2l8sn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=420&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/104691/original/image-20151207-3139-1i2l8sn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=420&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/104691/original/image-20151207-3139-1i2l8sn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=527&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/104691/original/image-20151207-3139-1i2l8sn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=527&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/104691/original/image-20151207-3139-1i2l8sn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=527&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Fact or fiction?</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">© 2015 Lucasfilm Ltd. & TM. All Rights Reserved</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>A lot has changed since the original Star Wars film in 1977; even since the last release in 2005. So when The Force Awakens presents the powerful ongoing saga of good versus evil, always hinting at a tantalising utopian future, it speaks very differently to a 21st-century audience. And as such, the film may help cement a revitalised faith in modernism for the 21st century.</p>
<h2>Grand narratives</h2>
<p>In the early 20th century, modernism embraced science and technology as a driving force for social and cultural development. Coupled with this vision was belief in a “grand narrative” of progress: we knew what we were doing and science and technology were part of building towards utopian-inspired goals. Western culture was fuelled by a deep-set faith in science and technology to drive the human race forward. The popular visual language of sci-fi, which sees technology and science as helping to design dreamworlds (or construct self-inflicted nightmares), was also largely put in place under modernism.</p>
<p>But around the middle of the century, following the discovery and use of the atom bomb, that belief in overarching progress began to waver. And culturally, modernism gave way to postmodernism and the suggestion that the human race has no idea where we are headed. </p>
<p>The worlds visualised by influential postmodern authors such as J G Ballard, William Burroughs, Philip K Dick, and William Gibson, to name a few, are contradictory and complex. Futuristic films such as Bladerunner (1982), The Matrix (1999), District 9 (2009), Equilibrium (2002) and the Mad Max franchise (from 1979 onwards) depict post-apocalyptic or damaged societies where existence has been reduced to survival. Perhaps the most haunting of these future visions is Cormac McCarthy’s <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/books/2006/nov/04/featuresreviews.guardianreview4">The Road</a> (2006), made into a <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0898367/">film</a> in 2009, with its bleak and naturalistic depiction of a familiar yet ruined world in the early 21st century.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/sGbxmsDFVnE?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
</figure>
<p>But The Force Awakens arrives at a time when a cultural belief in “grand narrative”, driven by design innovation, appears to be re-emerging. While a secure and sustainable future for planet Earth and the human race is <a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/paris-2015">far from guaranteed</a>, certain hopeful visions of the future formulated in the early 20th century are now an increasingly familiar part of the science and technology that surrounds us.</p>
<p>Ongoing advances in engineering and computing provide us with embedded technologies, wireless global communication, architectural marvels and skylines that look like scenes from a sci-fi movie. We have seen phenomenal developments in robotics and tentative moves towards <a href="https://theconversation.com/your-questions-answered-on-artificial-intelligence-49645">artificial intelligence</a>. Biological and medical science continues to map genetic materials and has moved so far that we now debate whether certain <a href="https://theconversation.com/bionic-power-trousers-could-help-us-get-up-the-stairs-38115">“bionic” capabilities</a> could and should exceed natural human limits.</p>
<p>The recent discovery of <a href="https://theconversation.com/exoplanet-kepler-452b-offers-a-glimpse-into-the-future-fate-of-our-earth-45144">Kepler 452b</a>, nicknamed “Earth 2.0”, is just one story in an ongoing stream of futuristic media reports. We’re talking about space travel as <a href="https://theconversation.com/is-space-tourism-travelling-faster-than-space-law-43586">tourism</a>; <a href="https://theconversation.com/mars-is-the-next-step-for-humanity-we-must-take-it-36688">independent wealth</a> being thrown at finding “extra-terrestrial” life and exploring space; renewed political will for national and international space programmes; discussions and reports about <a href="https://theconversation.com/nasa-streaks-of-salt-on-mars-mean-flowing-water-and-raise-new-hopes-of-finding-life-48182">life on other planets</a> and human <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-close-are-we-to-actually-becoming-martians-48074">migration</a> to the stars. All of this is compounded by amazing <a href="https://theconversation.com/hubble-in-pictures-astronomers-top-picks-40435">photographic</a> and scientific data being collated about our galaxy and what might lie beyond.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/104690/original/image-20151207-3131-lqyn6q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/104690/original/image-20151207-3131-lqyn6q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/104690/original/image-20151207-3131-lqyn6q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/104690/original/image-20151207-3131-lqyn6q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/104690/original/image-20151207-3131-lqyn6q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/104690/original/image-20151207-3131-lqyn6q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/104690/original/image-20151207-3131-lqyn6q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">C-3PO isn’t such a fantastical idea.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">© 2015 Lucasfilm Ltd. & TM. All Right Reserved</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Hopeful futures</h2>
<p>Some of the future technology seen in films such as Spielberg’s <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0181689/">Minority Report</a>, based upon a Philip K Dick short story from 1956, already exists (interactive glass screens and display panels). The physics represented in sci-fi fantasies, such as Christopher Nolan’s <a href="https://theconversation.com/interstellar-gives-a-spectacular-view-of-hard-science-33991">Interstellar</a> and Alfonso Cuarón’s <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-gravity-does-not-deserve-the-best-picture-oscar-23625">Gravity</a>, potentially make these films suitable as inspirational teaching tools.</p>
<p>Not many actually expect to find a socialised universe of alien beings, space federations and intergalactic war zones. Despite this, Star Wars: The Force Awakens epitomises the excitement and ambition associated with the growing potential for future space travel. The next Star Wars is going to be watched by a generation for whom space ships and <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-to-build-a-real-lightsaber-51000">lightsabers</a> aren’t beyond imagination. Star Wars therefore feeds into a cultural narrative about life amongst the stars and faith in human technological progress. It’s no longer simply an escapist fantasy, a dream.</p>
<p>But there is the dark side to consider.</p>
<p>Offering sweeping cultural statements about the resurgence of a modernist belief in progress is a glib observation in the face of very real contemporary threats. Widespread economic and social hardships, the threat of global warming and destructive geo-political situations currently define the early 21st century. So while a grand narrative of progress may be reasserting itself within western culture, it’s possible that this renewed hopeful vision of the future is born out of pessimism rather than optimism.</p>
<p>Perhaps we need this resurgent grand narrative of future survival among the stars because of a collective fear that we are destroying the planet we already have.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/46350/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Kevin Hunt does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
The alternate reality visualised in Star Wars is now potentially much closer to home.
Kevin Hunt, Senior Lecturer in Design, Culture and Context, Nottingham Trent University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.