During the 1980s, Japan was a world leader in terms of technological and economic development. Thanks to innovations in robotics, the automotive industry and devices such as Sony Walkman, Japan has become a symbol of the future as such. The West reacted to the "Japanese miracle" with techno-orientalism – identifying East Asia with technological and scientific developments, but also with an exotic culture that is supposedly foreign, incomprehensible and "other" to Westerners. The lecture will provide a brief overview of the impact of techno-orientalism on popular culture (especially on works of science fiction such as Exterminator / Blade Runner [1982] and Ghost in the Shell [1995]), but also on contemporary artistic-theoretical practices that seek to free the concept of the future from Eurocentrism and technological determinism.
Betty Stojnić is a PhD student in film studies at the University of Nagoya and the University of Warwick. In her research, she combines filmology, philosophy and cultural history and theory to study the representation of technology and science in Japanese science fiction and animated film. She is currently employed as an assistant at the Department of Film and Television Studies at the University of Warwick, where she participates in the course "Film and Television Criticism".
Organizers from the Association “Cultural Front” invite all interested to come to an interesting lecture and learn something new.
This lecture takes place as part of the project Opatija Coffeehouse Debates – Young scientists.
