Please note: this program starts at 19.30hrs
Introduction and discussion by Dr. Frank Schipper & Dr. Andreas Spahn (TU/e)
Fritz Lang, Germany 1927
language: silent (German)– subtitles: English
Metropolis is a pioneering science fiction film about the relation between humans and technology. The masterpiece that Fritz Lang directed reflected many elements of the volatile atmosphere of Germany in the 1920s. His movie constitutes a dark future scenario that forces us to think about human relations and the ways in which some profit more from technologies than others.
Above all, the film comments on the technology-mediated relations between capital and labor, an important issue at the time. The working place of the 1920s was changing fast, and not only for the better. Scale increase was on the rise in production processes, Taylorism and Fordism enabled massive mechanization in factories. What would happen to the masses that were doing the often boring work that was necessary within such a productive system? Along with the mechanization of the working place came the mechanization of man. The movie includes an inventor who creates a Maschinenmensch robot, following a Frankensteinian theme. Mechanization also touched the human environment. The movie sketches the city of the future full of high-rise buildings and continuously moving traffic, giving it a modern, but nervous character.
We will discuss the mechanization of man, the working place and the human environment in the light of the current debate on the future of work and the human-technology relation.
Students free admission, others regular fee
reservations: Natlab 0402946848