Dreams Rewired-film screening Event

“A montage of films from the 1880s to the 1930s, many rare and previously unscreened, it traces contemporary appetites and anxieties back to the birth of the telephone, television and cinema. Its claim: that the social convulsions of today’s hyper-mediated world were already prefigured over 100 years ago, during the electric media boom of the late 19th century. Early electric media were as revolutionary as social media are now. They sparked a fervent utopianism in the public imagination; promising total communication, the annihilation of distance, an end to war. The technologies were to serve everyone, not just the elites. Through strengthening human relationships, increasing efficiency, and predicting the future, it would become possible to build a new world for all to share.”

The film builds its narrative of past futures through almost 200 clips that start to tell a story that is at the same time about history of media and utopias and the current moment. To be modern is a recurring state of expectation and utopia that itself impacts the social contexts of technology. The directors’ statement emphasises it also as a political film, “yielding new perspectives on pressing contemporary debates – on security, privacy, and rights in virtual space; recalling forgotten histories – especially the role of women; and reminding us of the limits to the inclusiveness of utopia – the historical relationship between technological development and colonialism is mirrored in the way we ‘externalize’ the production (and disposal) of hardware today. The information revolution progresses on the backs of cheap labor and precious minerals.”

All welcome, free entry. The screening includes a short introduction by Professor Jussi Parikka.

Dreams Rewired-trailer: https://vimeo.com/136220947

Dreams Rewired-film website: http://www.dreamsrewired.com/synopsis/

The film reviewed in Neural-magazine: http://neural.it/2017/08/dreams-rewired-looking-back-to-look-forward/