The City in Cinema: How Popular Culture can Influence Research Agendas

This session at FET11 explored how the cinematic city could inspire researchers who are working on the transformative applications, concepts and infrastructures that will characterise the next decade. A series of film clips were shown under three broad categories: City as a System; Individual and the System; and Artefacts of the System. After each session a discussion took place among the participants and the emergent themes were recorded on notecards. These were photographed and displayed in a slideshow format for the remainder of the discussions. At the conclusion of the session it was agreed that the portrayal of future cities and the lives of their inhabitants in the cinema can reveal many enduring personal, societal and cultural concerns. These concerns must form the basis of requirements if technologies are to successfully integrate into our private and public lives.