Technology and Culture – Thinking Machines in Modern Cinema

This course will take major themes in human thought, technology and especially artificial intelligence through a close look at some exemplary films of the 20th and 21st century, We will read alongside of these films related essays or books that help conceptualize the major ideas. Films may include Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968), Scott’s Blade Runner (1984), Tarkovsky’s Stalker (1979) and more recent films such as Garland’s Ex Machina (2014). Readings will be drawn from author’s that will include Alan Turing, André Leroi-Gourhan, Donna Haraway, Ludwig Wittgenstein, and others.