Marco Ceresa
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Marco Ceresa is Professor of Chinese Literature and Cultural Studies
in East Asia at Ca’ Foscari
University of Venice, where he is also
appointed as the Rector’s Delegate for International Affairs (Asia),
and the Director of the Confucius
Institute. He holds a PhD in Far Eastern Studies from the Istituto Universitario Orientale of Naples, and a Master’s degree with honors in Chinese Language and Literature
from Ca’ Foscari University
of Venice. |
abstract
Shanghaied into the Future: the Asianization
of Future Metropolis in post-Blade
Runner Cinema
Ridley Scott’s dystopian film Blade Runner, which takes places in a 2019 Los Angeles, was released in 1982. It has since become a turning point in the history of ‘filming the future’, and the benchmark against which all cinematic future metropolises are measured. In Ridley Scott’s own words, he drew on the landscape of “Hong Kong on a very bad day”. The aim of this paper is to analyze the filmic representation of world future cities of the past 30 years as heavily Asianized (and obviously inspired by Shanghai, Tokyo or Seoul), both in terms of visual and material culture. At the same time, I will discuss the possible link between Asianization and retrofitted future, and its implications in terms of cultural hegemony.