FUTURE CITIES: IMAGINED

Kerim Bozkurt

In every story written, every scene painted and every movie realized, we create a new setting, a new world to accommodate those stories. Sometimes these worlds are subtle variations of our own reality but depending on the extremity of our wishes or fears, those worlds can turn into Utopias or Dystopias.

Since the early 20th century, movies have become the common media to portray these worlds especially at stories depicting the future. In these movies, new cities either simple as a matte painting in the background or complex as a whole digital model of the city with each street and building portrayed are created to represent them visually.

Most of the time in the movies, these specially created settings are blended in the background but for this presentation, specially de-plotted clips solely focusing on these settings are examined. Ranging from 1920s till present time, clips from over 30 movies are analyzed throughout the presentation, investigating the main motivations to create to such worlds in correlation with the era they were created at.