Untitled Document

WHERE NATURAL IS ARTIFICIAL;
(controlled and regulated nature)

In Blade Runner, as in many of the films, we see an enhanced correlation between technology and everyday life. Blade Runner depicts a despairing sort of urban jungle in which the density is propagated through advertisements. It would almost seem that one might find comfort in this bleak landscape within the familiar images portrayed through signage, branding, and corporate logos.
Similar feelings are given while watching I, Robot. It is easy to find comfort in the familiarity of objects and dwelling spaces that quite closely resemble our own. It is only in the details that we start to glimpse the uncanny aspects of these environments. The vision of Chicago, 2035 is clean and filled with light, and looks to be the ideal visionary future. But homes without a single potted plant, and streetscapes without any dotting of young trees, lead directly to a feeling of the uncanny. The sense of it is at the highest upon examining this environment and finding it a wholly believable offset of our own, or the Chicago of today.

In Blade Runner we see a glimpse of natural life in only a few live animals who cross a random scene. We are shown that these animals are not in fact organic life, but are replicants or robots, and this rather uncanny note points to a very distinct state of the world. Generally in urban fabrics of today and tomorrow the nature that we see is in actuality artificial. True wild is not to be found within a city, trees and parks have been manufactured and manicured and although they do still provide the cornerstone natural landscapes, this is nature in a sense of the artificial.