the routledge companion to science fiction

ed. Mark bould, Andrew M butler, Adam Roberts, and Sherry vint
London and New York: Routledge 2009


1. "design for screen sf" piers D. Britton 341-349
Two distinctive phases are identifiable. From the 1920s to the late 1960s, most definers leaned heavily upon modernist architectural and industrial design, above all in the idioms which emanated from the Bauhaus and the work of Le Corbusier. Sleek, streamlined forms, generally simple in profile and smooth in contour, and either shiny metallic or near-white were the norm: examples include Everytown in Things to come (Menzies 1936), the luna rocket in Destination Moon (Pichel 1950), and the Martian travel machines in War of the Worlds (Haskin 1953).

After 1970... confidence in the ideals of modernization and modernism was showing definite signs of disintegration, which began to express itself in contemporary architecture, industrial design, and fashion. Brutalist architects experimented with rough-hewn rather than smooth surfaces, while some mainstream early 1970s clothing, furnishing, and textile design had absorbed the "shaggy," ethnic-oriented tastes of the countercultural hippies.
Star wars IV and blade runner ... often vistas of technology which combine gargantuan scale and power with a clear sense of the intricacy and untidiness of real-world spaces and artifacts.
the smog, floodlights, besmirched chimneys and gantries of contemporary heavy industry are amp flied a thousand-fold in the aerial shot of the hellish 2019 Los Angeles in Blade runner.
star wars are groundbreaking also for the sheer destiny of "lived-in" realism... the surfaces of buildings, vehicles, machinery, and robots are scratched, oil-smeared and scorched; clothing and battle armor look used and scuffed rather than pristine; and the action periodically moves through spectacularly grim, disorderly environments, including a traveling scrapyard and a garbage sump. Star War's aesthetic evokes the mixture of flyblown shabbiness and dustily expansive natural grandeur which John Ford, Sergio Leone, ad Henry Hathaway had rendered so picturesque in their Technicolor westerns.


2."Music" Ken McLeod
Philip Hayward (2004) off the planet: music, sound and science fiction cinema
Eshun, kodwo (1998) More brilliant than the sun: adventures in sonic fiction
Jeremy Gilbert and Ewan Pearson (1999) Discographies: dance music, culture and the politics of sound
Timothy Taylor (2001) Strange sounds: music technology and culture

3.science studies sheerly vint
studies of "technoculture" focus on the social and ethical consequences of scientific "discoveries" and technological creations.

bruno latour
Luckhurst, R. 2002 The invention of telepathy, 1870-1901
2006 science fiction studies33(1)-- latour, castells, kilter into dialogue with Martin Willis
Martin Willis 2006 Mesmerists, monsters and machines: science fiction and the culture of science in the nineteenth century