Sensory_Beings

The permeation of sensory equipment throughout these cities, points to the very sensory and even sensual nature of the inhabitants of these places. In a time prior to there being technology even close to today’s televisions, screens and monitors, Fritz Lang’s Metropolis exhibited a live video connection between Fredersen and the machine operators deep below the earth. This very idea of media through which we may interact became featured in the majority of science fiction films to follow, ever closing the gap between the technologies we use and our natural receptors of the environment.

Videodrome, of course, plays on the role and enormous spread of video technology. The television fills the city, and delivers a new sensory existence, informing a new reality. This is taken to such an extent that the character Professor Brian O’Blivion (aptly named, though excessively tongue-in-cheek) exists now only on videotape, somehow both lost forever, and immortalized in the world of light and sound.

Throughout these films, the interaction of the cities' inhabitants with sensory and visualization technology deomstrates the synthesis of the biology and psychology of the inhabitants with the cities' own sensitive systems. These devices reveal the complex interconnections that exist between the civilians and the metropolis, as they illuminate the invisible forces, entities, or even memories, ever connecting the virtual un-sensed space with those living in these future urban settings. These systems of sensors and bio-technological enhancements often become integrated with the inhabitants themselves, fusing city and being once more.

The significance of eyes, as a primary means of receiving information for the perception of the city, connects many of these films thematically through the persistent images of systems of observation, and eyes themselves. Entire creatures and elements of the city appear to be developed with their eyes as central components, for both their alien quality, and the fear of their ‘all-seeing’ abilities, making hiding or escaping such monsters nearly impossible.

An interesting quality of extra-sensory perception, or heightened abilities of sensing the world, are exhibted by the central characters of Akira and The Matrix. The ability to, in fact, sense life forms, or other beings in a pseudo-spritual way is connected ironically to the sophistication of the technology, and the integration of these special individuals with the technological environment of the city.