Three screenings proposed by\u00a0Bob Curwen<\/b>, followed by discussion.<\/p>\n
Monday, November 21, 7:00 pm
\n<\/b>Screamers<\/i> (Christian Duguay, 1998). Based on Philip Dick\u2019s short story Second Variety<\/i> (1953).<\/p>\n
Tuesday, November 22, 7:00 pm
\n<\/b>Naked Lunch<\/i> (David Cronenberg, 1991). Based on William Burroughs\u2019 1959 novel.<\/p>\n
Wednesday, November 23, 7:00 pm
\n<\/b>Zombi<\/i> (George Romero, 1978).<\/p>\n
Sex and Drugs and Rock and Roll and Science Fiction
\n<\/b>The postwar financial boom of the fifties and sixties in the US and Great Britain took place during the Cold War, at the peak of the arms race: the first motorways were being built, supermarkets were opening, skyscrapers were rising and the television was entering common use. In his book Everyday Life in the Modern World<\/i> (published in 1968), the French sociologist Henri Lefebvre defined contemporary western society as a \u201cbeaurocratic society of directed consumption\u201d. In that context, underground culture proliferated and writers such as J. G. Ballard, John Brunner and Philip K. Dick of the \u201cnew wave\u201d of science fiction wrote surreal, satirical, speculative tales that echoed the concerns of an era when people were fearing the loss of their \u201cindividuality\u201d in the new mass consumer culture. Science fiction aimed to experiment with ideas rather than attaining a supposedly realistic effect. Sci-fi authors were part of paperback culture, the paperback writers<\/i> the Beatles sung of. Their books were sold at newspaper stands, stores, supermarkets, bus and train stations; they were a part of Tarantino’s Pulp Fiction. <\/i>Until well into the seventies, few \u201cserious\u201d bookstores would have sold science fiction.<\/p>\n
Fifty years later, science fiction’s countercultural work seems to have been assimilated by today’s inoffensive cultural supermarket. Because of this, I’m interested in trying to represent some of the old, irreverent science fiction spirit, invisible in today’s film industry and its massive budgets, where sci-fi has been relegated to an exercise in escapism and diversion, as in Star Wars<\/i>, Avatar<\/i>, Minority Report<\/i> or Dune<\/i>.<\/p>\n
Bob Curwen.<\/b> Translator. Degree in Fine Arts with University College London. Has always been a keen reader of science fiction & horror fiction.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Three screenings proposed by\u00a0Bob Curwen, followed by discussion. Monday, November 21, 7:00 pm Screamers (Christian Duguay, 1998). Based on Philip Dick\u2019s short story Second Variety (1953). Tuesday, November 22, 7:00 pm Naked Lunch (David Cronenberg, 1991). Based on William Burroughs\u2019 1959 novel. Wednesday, November 23, 7:00 pm Zombi (George Romero, 1978). Sex and Drugs and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":18468,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[38],"tags":[],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n