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Since its inception by the Council of Europe in 1989, Eurimages has been to the fore in financing European co-productions with the aim of fostering integration and cooperation in artistic and industry circles and has helped finance over 1,600 feature films, animations and documentaries. Taking as its thesis the idea that the CoE seeks to perpetuate Europes utopian ideals, despite the dystopian realities that frequently undermine both the EU and the continent at large, this article analyses select Eurimages-funded dystopian films from industrial, aesthetic and socio-cultural standpoints with a view toward decoding institutionally embedded critiques of the European project.
Self-driving cars have long been depicted in cinematic narratives, across genres from science fiction films to fantasy films. In some cases, a self-driving car is personified as one of the main characters. This article examines cinematic representations and imaginaries in order to understand the development of the self-driving technology and its integration in contemporary societies, drawing on examples such as The Love Bug, Knight Rider, Minority Report and I, Robot. Conceptually and methodologically, the article combines close readings of films with technological concerns and theoretical considerations, in an attempt to grasp the entanglement of cinematographic imaginaries, audiovisual technologies, artificial intelligence and human interactions that characterise the introduction of self-driving cars in contemporary societies. The human–AI machine interaction is considered both on technological and theoretical levels. Issues of automation, agency and disengagement are traced in cinematic representations and tackled, calling into question the concepts of socio-technical assemblage.
cuteness, to science fiction level body machine melding’. Wearables range from ‘the eminently practical’ to the ‘utterly fantastical’. The functions of these digital technologies are not necessarily novel: paper maps have existed for centuries; pedometers date back to the eighteenth century; devices measuring distances cycled or walked, spectacles, prosthetic devices and wristwatches are further examples of historical wearable technologies ( Carter et al. , 2018